The presentation should include an outline at the introduction of the presentation. Throughout the presentation, the speaker should reference the outline to remind the audience where they are in the presentation narrative. For example, when presenting on a clinical research study, provide a recurrent slide that presents whether you are discussing the background of the project, methods, results, or conclusions. An outline of the presentation describes the general objectives of the talk while serving as a structure on which to build throughout the presentation.
Each presentation slide should have a headline that describes the topic discussed. A headline decreases the cognitive load placed on the audience by identifying the main point. Alley et al. compared the effects of a short phrase headline to a succinct sentence-structured headline on audience retention of a presentation. 10 The authors found that the average score for students viewing the succinct sentence-structured headline was significantly higher. 10 Specifically, a headline should be in a “subject-verb-object” structure using fewer than 140 characters. When presenting a graph or a table that contains a complex topic, the slide’s headline should summarize the take-home point. For example, when presenting a graph on the economic benefit of plastic and reconstructive global surgical trips, the headline could read “Substantial Economic Benefit for Global Surgery Interventions.” The actual economics may be a complex topic for the average audience if they are not economists themselves, but the main point resides in the simple headline.
There should be consistency of formatting throughout the presentation and among the different mediums used to present the same information (e.g., slideshow, poster, oral presentation). One simple font should be used throughout the presentation. In addition, the presenter should keep the font size consistent across all headlines, bullet points, diagrams, and tables. Furthermore, background color and design elements, such as the color of the diagrams, should be the same throughout. 11 Color palettes found online can be used to create a theme in the design of the presentation. Margins to the slides should also be aesthetically consistent, as demonstrated in Figure 1 . If the titles or headlines are of varying sizes, an example of inconsistency, the reader may not recognize that sections are related or exhaust time connecting the key points. Consistency decreases distraction and polishes the delivery of the information.
Aspects that influence a presentation’s appeal include font, background color, contrast between color of content and background, symmetry, consistency, and more. Goodhand et al. studied the value of posters at medical meetings and found that audience perception of scientific merit correlates with visual appeal. 12 They found that factors increasing visual appeal included their scientific content, pictures/graphs, and limited use of words. 12 Visual appeal consists of many different aspects, which makes it difficult to discuss specifically each detail. Complex concepts can be simplified by creating visual representations, flow charts, and vector diagrams. Resources to consider may be graphics available in Microsoft Word (Microsoft Corp.), The Noun Project (The Noun Project, Inc., Los Angeles, Calif.), Lucidchart (Lucid Software, Inc., South Jordan, Utah), or FlatIcon (Freepik Company, Malaga, Spain). Figure 2 demonstrates the use of a SmartArt graphic in Microsoft Word to organize information. However, cartoons or videos could distract the audience from the main purpose of the slide and should be weighed carefully. Spending extra time on aesthetic details such as font, background, symmetry, and consistency will improve the slideshow’s visual appeal and professional tone.
A presenter should limit each major concept to no more than four main ideas. In 2001, Cowan studied the mental storage capacity for short-term memory and found that humans are able to remember approximately four main points. 13 If there are more than four key ideas, the presenter should separate the information, so it is not all included on the same slides. For example, when introducing a research study, the four main points may consist of briefly naming the author(s), methods, findings, and the study’s impact on the current topic. Other noteworthy aspects of the study could be expanded upon in the next slide(s). Keeping within four main points aims to maximize the efficiency and overall effectiveness of each slide for the presenter and audience.
Word choice.
Word choice is the specific vocabulary used by the speaker to convey a message. Text in the presentation should be kept simple, using as few words as possible. Using complicated, lofty words increases lexical density and inflicts a strain on the audience to decipher the meaning of the message while requiring additional work to follow along. Sainsbury examined the effect of lexical density and visual clarity of slides on presentation interpretations. 14 The study found that the presentations with less lexical density, despite worse visual clarity, led to greater audience fluency. 14 Considering word choice and using less dense language is a strategy to improve audience comprehension.
In 2007, Todd Bishop, a reporter for the Seattle Post Intelligencer , compared word choice between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates by running their presentation transcripts through UsingEnglish.com, a language analyzer. 15 The tool examines the average number of words per sentence, lexical density, average number of words with more than three syllables, and the level of education theoretically needed to understand the text. It was found that across all four categories, Jobs scored better than Gates. 15 He spoke more simply, was less abstract, and used fewer words per sentence. For example, where Jobs would say “improved quality,” Gates would say “discoverability of the richness.” If a message is confusing, abstract, or convoluted, the presenter will lose an opportunity to share his or her knowledge. Similar language analyzers are offered online and through Microsoft Word. Specifically, Microsoft Word will provide readability statistics, a feature found within its Spelling and Grammar tool. Based on readability statistics, a presenter can adjust his or her language to ensure it resonates better with the audience.
Effective scientific presentations show the topic’s relevance to the audience. In surgical and medical education, numbers are often used to describe the efficacy of a treatment or epidemiology of a condition. In breaking down the meaning of data and placing it into a familiar context, greater meaning is provided to the audience. For example, when conducting an economic analysis of plastic and reconstructive surgical efforts in the developing world, Nasser et al. found that the lose of approximately 1720 disability-adjusted life years was averted. 16 However, they went further to explain that 1720 disability-adjusted life years were equal to a total economic benefit of $9,795,384, the same as $12,957 per patient. 16 As a listener, it may be difficult to comprehend the impact of 1720 disability-adjusted life years without further context, but each audience member can visualize what an extra $13,000 could amount to in their own lives. People are more familiar with the concept of currency than disability-adjusted life years; therefore, placing the numbers in a tangible context enhances understanding and creates a greater impact on the audience.
The 10-Minute Rule states that after 10 minutes, the audience will begin to mentally “check out” or naturally lose focus and interest. Thus, every 10 minutes the presenter should change the pace, welcome questions, or add an energizing moment. This can be in the form of sharing a joke or anecdote (these should be relevant, brief, and appropriate), posing a question to the audience, playing a video (which should always be embedded within the presentation to avoid wasting time and creating distractions), or introducing a demonstration. Tanveer et al. studied how narrative trajectories influence audience perception by analyzing the transcripts of more than 2000 TED talks. 17 They found that variations in the narratives were important to hold the motivation and attention of the audience, and presentations without variations were more likely to receive lower ratings. 17 It is common for a presenter to begin and end a presentation without a break or change in pace, but the 10-minute rule is an objective marker presenters can use to avoid delivering a monologue presentation.
Using demonstrations and props, such as sharing a video of an operative technique, using an anatomical model to discuss specific physiology, or bringing a tool or technology relevant to the topic, is a way to increase engagement in a presentation. For example, Atherton et al. described the use of the Aurasma application, formerly available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, which connected anyone with the app to three-dimensional medical models via QR code. 18 The presenter could create a demonstration of a surgical technique via Aurasma, and the audience was able to view the demonstration from a presentation on their personal smart devices. 18 Demonstrations and props are strategies to keep in mind for the 10-minute rule. Scientific presentations rely heavily on auditory and visual learning, so props offer an alternative way of learning, kinesthetic learning. Although it may be difficult to incorporate props into every presentation, especially as online-based presentations become more popular, apps such as Aurasma may be a useful tool.
Procedures in surgical education can be described through text and pictures, but utilizing a short video clip to demonstrate a procedure enhances the presentation and further reinforces the prior information. Vara et al. described their experiences using the GoPro HERO systems (GoPro, Inc., San Mateo, Calif.) to record video of hand and upper extremity procedures as a technique to capture, analyze, and share surgical experiences. 19 Video clips incorporate motion into a presentation and may help convey complex visual-spatial topics while offering the presenter a moment to share the spotlight and an opportunity to take a break. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that videos are of reasonable length, as this can influence likability of a video or presentation. 20 Embedding the video into your presentation, rather than switching applications, may save time and make the transition more comfortable for the audience.
Sharing the spotlight means incorporating others into a presentation rather than a speaker delivering a monologue. Sharing the spotlight can take the form of simply acknowledging and thanking other team members, or presenters may include guest speakers or specialists in a lecture to share their knowledge. Steve Jobs would often share the spotlight by inviting famous people, such as musician John Mayer, or even a doppelgänger to lead a demonstration. 1 A benefit of online meeting platforms, such as Zoom (Zoom Video Communications, San Jose, Calif.) or Webex (Cisco Systems, Inc., Milpitas, Calif.), is that they make it is easier for special guest speakers to join remotely for a portion of the talk. In addition, testimonials from experts or patients are a way of sharing the spotlight in scientific presentations and offer an engaging opportunity to create a memorable moment.
After the presentation has been physically created, rehearsal is critical. As in a theatre rehearsal, there should be a script, costume, and many practices. A script should direct the presenter in how to discuss the information on the slide. Ultimately, with practice, the presenter should not rely on the script during the presentation but should keep a copy in a pocket only to use as a last resort. The comfort of having this security blanket invariably puts the speaker at rest. A presenter should not read every single word on the slide verbatim, but rather explain and verbally bring the information to life. It is essential that the presenter practice the entire presentation, preferably recording the rehearsal to assess body language, verbal fillers, and subconscious nervous habits. Feelings of nervousness and anxiety about public speaking are common.
Hansen et al. provide information on techniques for delivering effective lectures to ensure that surgeons speak as well as they operate. 21 The authors describe the importance of understanding and acknowledging that everyone experiences a level of anxiety when presenting. 21 Physicians are taught to anticipate complications related to a procedure or condition, thus an effective presenter will also learn to anticipate certain traits, such as speaking too fast, anxiety, and nervousness. Acknowledging the humanity in those emotions and practicing using the techniques described will decrease nervousness, boost confidence, and enhance the effectiveness of the presentation.
The presenter should dress to match the expected professional role he or she is representing. Some say dress for success, but perhaps a better takeaway is to never be underdressed. This is not to say that every presenter should wear the most formal attire, but rather to consider the conscious and subconscious effect a speaker’s outfit may have on the audience’s perception of the presenter. As in scientific posters, those who look sharp are taken more seriously. Feeling confident in an outfit may also translate to greater self-assuredness on the stage. Ruetzler et al. performed a conjoint analysis of personal presentation attributes and found that grooming and professional attire were most notable in shaping favorable perceptions. 22 Furthermore, Keegan and Bannister studied the effect of color-coordinated attire with poster presentation popularity. 23 They found a significantly higher number of visitors for posters of presenters with coordinated rather than clashing attire. 23 The two studies suggest that there are benefits to dressing professionally, and that attire does affect how the presentation is received.
After the hard work of preparing, constructing, and refining a presentation, the final ingredient for delivering an effective presentation is personality: sprinkle in jokes and anecdotes while demonstrating both confidence and humility throughout to make the presentation representative of the presenter. Creating the presentation should be fun; if the presenter does not enjoy the presentation, there is no way the audience will either. Humor and stories should be kept professional relative to the level of the presentation but should still aim to keep the audience engaged with light and relatable moments. The skills highlighted in this article will help presenters create effective scientific presentations. Furthermore, future research identifying the strengths and weaknesses in plastic surgery presentations can help improve the quality of the presentations in the field.
Finding meaning in life, dealing with difficult people and why it matters, strategies to foster creativity, the most current algorithms for the treatment and prevention of hypertrophic..., tips and tricks for facial toxin injections with illustrated anatomy.
We’ve all been there – rushing to put slides together for an upcoming talk, filling them with bullet points and text that we want to remember to cover. We aren’t sure exactly what the audience will want to know or how much detail to include, so we default to putting ALL the details in that might be needed. But such efforts often result in presentations that are too long, too confusing, and difficult for both ourselves and our audiences to navigate.
Today I gave a workshop to public health graduate students about how to create more engaging science presentations and talks. I’ve summarized the main takeaways below. I hope this quick guide will be useful to you as you prepare for your next science talk or presentation!
The best science talks start with a process of simplifying – peeling back the layers of information and detail to get at the one core idea that you want to communicate. Over the course of your talk, you may present 2-3 key messages that relate to, demonstrate, provide examples of or underpin this idea. (Three is a nice round number of messages or takeaways that your audience will be able to remember!) But stick to one big idea. Trying to communicate too much in a presentation or talk will overwhelm your audience, and they may walk away without a good memory of any of the ideas you presented.
Once you’ve settled on your one big idea, you can develop a theme that will pervade every aspect of your talk. This theme might be a defining element of your big idea and something that can tie all of your data or talking points together. Your theme should inform the examples, anecdotes and analogies that you use to make the science concepts you present more accessible. It should also inform your slides’ very design – the colors, visuals, layout and content flow.
If you have trouble identifying your big idea and your theme, you can try using what scientist and science author Randy Olson calls the “Dobzhansky Template.” Fill in the blanks of this statement: “ Nothing in [your talk topic, research topic or big idea] makes sense, except in the light of [your theme!] .”
Here’s an example for you: “Nothing in the creation of engaging science talks makes sense except in the light of people’s need for personal connection .” With this statement, I’m identifying a key aspect, a unifying theme, for my talk (or blog post) on how to create engaging science talks. We all crave personal connection. Yes, even to the speakers of science talks we listen to! What does this mean in terms of what we want or expect from these speakers? It means we want storytelling . We want to hear their stories, know their background, hear about their struggles and triumphs! We want to be able to step into their shoes and see what they saw. We want to interact with them.
Narratives engage more than facts. By telling a story , using suspense and characters to pull people through your presentation, you will capture and keep their attention for longer. People also remember information presented in a story format better than they do information presented as disparate facts or bullet points.
“Story is a pull strategy. If your story is good enough, people—of their own free will—come to the conclusion they can trust you and the message you bring.” – Annette Simmons
Storytelling is a powerful science communication tool. In storytelling, both the storyteller and the listener or reader contribute to the story’s meaning through their interpretations, feelings and emotions. Liz Neeley, former executive director of The Story Collider, once said: “Science communicators frequently fail to understand that a feeling is almost never conquered with a fact.”
Stories are exciting. They elicit emotions. They help foster a personal connection between the storyteller and the listener, and a connection between the listener and the topic, characters or ideas presented in the story.
But what IS a story? As humans, we excel at recognizing a story when we hear one, but defining a story’s key characteristics is more difficult than you might think. If you ask anyone to explain what makes for a good story, they likely will have a hard time explaining it.
In her fantastic book Wired for Story , Lisa Cron starts by explaining what a story is NOT.
It is not plot – that is just what happens in the story.
It is not characters , although characters are critical components of storytelling, even if they are not human or even alive. Cells and molecules could be the characters of your next science talk!
It is not suspense or conflict , although these elements get us closer to what defines a good story. But just because your talk builds suspense does not necessarily make it an engaging story. What if we don’t identify with your characters?
The truth is that the key defining element of story is internal change . Think of how every Aesop’s fable communicates a moral or lesson that the main character learned from some journey. As Lisa Cron writes, “A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.” The key here is the part about “how he or she changes.” A great story calls characters to a great adventure, but the adventure doesn’t leave them just as they were before. The adventure – like a scientific discovery that took years of experimentation (and failure) in the lab – leads to an internal change, in perspective or knowledge or behavior, as a result of conflicts overcome.
This is the secret of storytelling. A story asks characters to change and grow, and so the scientists in our stories must change and grow, discover new things about themselves and overcome challenges that force them to adopt new perspectives. So if you are giving a science talk about your own research, this might look like telling stories about your own struggles, growths and changes in perspective as you made your journey to discovery!
How can you bring a story of internal change to your next science presentation or talk?
What is one of the most common mistakes people make when creating slides to accompany a science talk? They use WAY too much text, and they use visuals as an afterthought. Worse yet, they use visuals that are copyrighted without attribution. They use stock imagery that reinforces stereotypes. They use visuals pasted from a Google search that don’t help the viewer understand or interpret what is said or written on the slides.
Visuals can be a powerful tool to advance audience learning or engagement during your science talks. You can use visuals to provide concrete examples of concepts you are talking about. You can use imagery that sparks thought or emotion. You can use visuals that reinforce your BIG idea or the theme of your talk, in a way that will make your talk more memorable for them. Yes, you might need to use a scientific figure, graph, chart or data visualization here and there if you are giving a more technical scientific talk, and that’s ok as long as you also talk the audience through this visual. Don’t assume they can listen to you talk about something different while also taking the time to interpret the message in this graphic or visualization – they can’t.
The same goes for text. You are demanding way too much brainpower of your audience to expect them to listen to you while also reading your slides. And if you are saying the same things as are written on your slides, they will grow bored. Simple visual aids used the right way, however, can delight your audience and help them better understand what you are saying.
Consider working with a professional artist or designer to create visuals for the slides of your next science talk! They excel at creating visuals that capture people’s attention, curiosity and emotions. And if you do this, your visuals will perfectly match what you are trying to communicate in words, boosting learning and understanding.
A good science talk or presentation gives the audience opportunities to interact with you! This could be through questions, activities, discussions or thought experiments. Let the audience explore your data or interpretations with you. They will be more engaged and likely trust you more as a result, because they felt heard .
Most great science speakers make themselves vulnerable in a way – they tell personal stories of struggles, growth and discovery. Personal stories are engaging. They also help the audience care about what the speaker has to say.
It can be scary to talk about yourself, especially for a scientist who has been trained to focus solely on the data. But the humans listening to your talk or presentation crave human connection. They will also grab hold of anything that helps them better relate to you. Give them that in the form of personal stories of obstacles overcome, of personal lessons learned, of work-life balance, of your fears and passions. Better yet, tell personal stories that reinforce your theme and show the power of your big idea!
Do you have other strategies for how you make your science talks and presentations more engaging? Let me know in the comments below!
About the author: paige jarreau.
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Home Blog Education How to Prepare Your Scientific Presentation
Since the dawn of time, humans were eager to find explanations for the world around them. At first, our scientific method was very simplistic and somewhat naive. We observed and reflected. But with the progressive evolution of research methods and thinking paradigms, we arrived into the modern era of enlightenment and science. So what represents the modern scientific method and how can you accurately share and present your research findings to others? These are the two fundamental questions we attempt to answer in this post.
To better understand the concept, let’s start with this scientific method definition from the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography :
The scientific method is a way of conducting research, based on theory construction, the generation of testable hypotheses, their empirical testing, and the revision of theory if the hypothesis is rejected.
Essentially, a scientific method is a cumulative term, used to describe the process any scientist uses to objectively interpret the world (and specific phenomenon) around them.
The scientific method is the opposite of beliefs and cognitive biases — mostly irrational, often unconscious, interpretations of different occurrences that we lean on as a mental shortcut.
The scientific method in research, on the contrary, forces the thinker to holistically assess and test our approaches to interpreting data. So that they could gain consistent and non-arbitrary results.
The common scientific method examples are:
All of the above are used by both scientists and businesses to make better sense of the data and/or phenomenon at hand.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle are believed to be the forefathers of the scientific method. They were among the first to try to justify and refine their thought process using the scientific method experiments and deductive reasoning.
Both developed specific systems for knowledge acquisition and processing. For example, the Platonic way of knowledge emphasized reasoning as the main method for learning but downplayed the importance of observation. The Aristotelian corpus of knowledge, on the contrary, said that we must carefully observe the natural world to discover its fundamental principles.
In medieval times, thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Andreas Vesalius among many others worked on further clarifying how we can obtain proven knowledge through observation and induction.
The 16th–18th centuries are believed to have given the greatest advances in terms of scientific method application. We, humans, learned to better interpret the world around us from mechanical, biological, economic, political, and medical perspectives. Thinkers such as Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and their followers also increasingly switched to a tradition of explaining everything through mathematics, geometry, and numbers.
Up till today, mathematical and mechanical explanations remain the core parts of the scientific method.
Because our ancestors didn’t have as much data as we do. We now live in the era of paramount data accessibility and connectivity, where over 2.5 quintillions of data are produced each day. This has tremendously accelerated knowledge creation.
But, at the same time, such overwhelming exposure to data made us more prone to external influences, biases, and false beliefs. These can jeopardize the objectivity of any research you are conducting.
Scientific findings need to remain objective, verifiable, accurate, and consistent. Diligent usage of scientific methods in modern business and science helps ensure proper data interpretation, results replication, and undisputable validity.
Over the course of history, the scientific method underwent many interactions. Yet, it still carries some of the integral steps our ancestors used to analyze the world such as observation and inductive reasoning. However, the modern scientific method steps differ a bit.
An observation serves as a baseline for your research. There are two important characteristics for a good research observation:
For example, This apple is red (objective/verifiable observation). This apple is delicious (subjective, harder-to-verify observation).
Observations tell us about the present or past. But the goal of science is to glean in the future. A scientific hypothesis is based on prior knowledge and produced through reasoning as an attempt to descriptive a future event.
Here are characteristics of a good scientific hypothesis:
Remember: If we state our hypothesis to indicate there is no effect, our hypothesis is a cause-and-effect relationship . A hypothesis, which asserts no effect, is called a null hypothesis.
A hypothesis is a mental “launchpad” for predicting the existence of other phenomena or quantitative results of new observations.
Going back to an earlier example here’s how to turn it into a hypothesis and a potential prediction for proving it. For example: If this apple is red, other apples of this type should be red too.
Your goal is then to decide which variables can help you prove or disprove your hypothesis and prepare to test these.
Collect all the information around variables that will help you prove or disprove your prediction. According to the scientific method, a hypothesis has to be discarded or modified if its predictions are clearly and repeatedly incompatible with experimental results.
Yes, you may come up with an elegant theory. However, if your hypothetical predictions cannot be backed by experimental results, you cannot use them as a valid explanation of the phenomenon.
To come up with proof for your hypothesis, use different statistical analysis methods to interpret the meaning behind your data.
Remember to stay objective and emotionally unattached to your results. If 95 apples turned red, but 5 were yellow, does it disprove your hypothesis? Not entirely. It may mean that you didn’t account for all variables and must adapt the parameters of your experiment.
Here are some common data analysis techniques, used as a part of a scientific method:
Every experiment has two possible outcomes:
If that’s the latter, as a scientist you must discard the prediction then and most likely also rework the hypothesis based on it.
Whether you are doing a poster session, conference talk, or follow-up presentation on a recently published journal article, most of your peers need to know how you’ve arrived at the presented conclusions.
In other words, they will probe your scientific method for gaps to ensure that your results are fair and possible to replicate. So that they could incorporate your theories in their research too. Thus your scientific presentation must be sharp, on-point, and focus clearly on your research approaches.
Below we propose a quick framework for creating a compelling scientific presentation in PowerPoint (+ some helpful templates!).
Here’s how to start a scientific presentation with ease: share your research question. On the first slide, briefly recap how your thought process went. Briefly state what was the underlying aim of your research: Share your main hypothesis, mention if you could prove or disprove them.
It might be tempting to pack a lot of ideas into your first slide but don’t. Keep the opening of your presentation short to pique the audience’s initial interest and set the stage for the follow-up narrative.
Whether you are doing a science poster presentation or conference talk, many audience members would be curious to understand how you arrived at your results. Deliver this information at the beginning of your presentation to avoid any ambiguities.
Here’s how to organize your science methods on a presentation:
Finally, when you work on visuals for your presentation — charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. — think from the perspective of a subject novice. Does the image really convey the key information around the subject? Does it help break down complex ideas?
Obviously, the research results will be your biggest bragging right. However, don’t over-pack your presentation with a long-winded discussion of your findings and how revolutionary these may be for the community.
Rather than writing a wall of text, do this instead:
Overall, when you feel that the results slide gets too cramped, it’s best to move the data to a new one.
Also, as you work on organizing data on your scientific presentation PowerPoint template , think if there are obvious limitations and gaps. If yes, make sure you acknowledge them during your speech.
The scientific method mandates objectivity. That’s why every researcher must clearly state what was excluded from their study. Remember: no piece of scientific research is truly universal and has certain boundaries. However, when you fail to personally state those, others might struggle to draw the line themselves and replicate your results. Then, if they fail to do so, they’d question the viability of your research.
Every experienced speaker will tell you that the audience best retains the information they hear first and last. Most people will attend more than one scientific presentation during the day.
So if you want the audience to better remember your talk, brainstorm a take-home message for the last slide of your presentation. Think of your last slide texts as an elevator pitch — a short, concluding message, summarizing your research.
Today we have no shortage of research and scientific methods for testing and proving our hypothesis. However, unlike our ancestors, most scientists experience deeper scrutiny when it comes to presenting and explaining their findings to others. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your scientific presentation clearly relays the aim, vector, and thought process behind your research.
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One of the biggest challenges for presenters is to summarize content from lengthy reports, academic papers, or any other kind of written media in an informative and concise way. Rather than losing countless hours going over and over the same text, we can speed up the process thanks to the virtues of artificial intelligence. In […]
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* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliation Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
Published: December 2, 2021
Citation: Naegle KM (2021) Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides. PLoS Comput Biol 17(12): e1009554. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554
Copyright: © 2021 Kristen M. Naegle. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The author has declared no competing interests exist.
The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.
Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.
Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554.g001
When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.
When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.
While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.
An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.
As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.
The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:
It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.
Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.
The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:
These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].
I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.
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What makes an engaging scientific presentation? Georgia Tech Professor Will Ratcliff uses a method based on the style of nature documentary presenter David Attenborough. Ratcliff’s approach looks to capture an audience’s natural curiosity by using engaging visuals and simple storytelling techniques. Here are his 10 keys to an engaging scientific presentation: 1) Be an Entertainer First: […]
What makes an engaging scientific presentation? Georgia Tech Professor Will Ratcliff uses a method based on the style of nature documentary presenter David Attenborough. Ratcliff’s approach looks to capture an audience’s natural curiosity by using engaging visuals and simple storytelling techniques.
Here are his 10 keys to an engaging scientific presentation:
1) Be an Entertainer First : Before your science can wow your audience, they have to understand it. Before they can understand it, you must engage them with what you’re saying. Look at your presentation from your audience’s perspective and think about how they’ll relate to your material. Focus on presenting your science in a way that engages and entertains as it explains.
2) Be a Storyteller, Not a Lecturer : Don’t assume that your audience knows your field. Tell the story of your science: identify the big picture backdrop, your specific research questions, how you answer those questions, and how it affects the way we now think about the big picture.
3) Prioritize Clarity : If the audience doesn’t understand every word you use, they’ll stop paying attention, and you may never win them back. Your goal is to never lose their attention in the first place, so make an effort to be clear and have a simple narrative arc to your talk.
4) Mind Your Transitions: The easiest place to lose your audience’s focus is when you move from one slide to another. Practice the transitions in your talk to make sure the link between the ideas of one slide and the next remains clear.
5) Keep Complete Sentences Out of Your Slides: Keep the text in your slides to a minimum. Instead, use compelling visual to hold your audience’s attention while you speak.
6) Animations Are Your Friend: You can use animations to reveal new details on your slide as they become relevant to what you are saying. That way you get to control what your audience is seeing, minimizing distraction and putting laser pointers out of a job. Note: never use silly and unnecessary animations, like spinning or scrolling text, this will just annoy your audience.
7) Get Excited: If you’re not excited and energetic about your work, your audience won’t be either.
8) Look at the Audience: Don’t stare at the floor, the ceiling, or your slides while you’re presenting. Look directly at your audience, or if you’re nervous, toward the back of the lecture hall. This will help you connect with your audience.
9) Be Wary of Jokes: Scientific talks are serious by nature and you have more to lose than to gain. If a joke is poorly timed or if you misjudge an audience, you risk alienating them. Play it safe and find other ways to be entertaining unless you know your audience well.
10) Leave the Laser Pointer at Home: Laser pointers are distracting. If you feel you need one to guide your audience through a slide, that’s a sign your slide is too cluttered.
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This book is a comprehensive guidebook designed specifically for researchers. Drawing from over 25 years of practical experience in presentation training and lecture coaching, combined with the latest findings from brain research, this book equips you with the essential tools to excel in scientific communication.
A good talk is the key to success for any scientist. Your reputation and career depend on your ability to deliver clear, engaging presentations. In today's digital age, with virtual communication becoming increasingly important, it is crucial to adapt your presentation skills to both face-to-face and online settings.
Learn how to structure your presentations effectively, visualize complex information, and create a captivating introduction. Discover tried-and-tested techniques for delivering a powerful main part and confidently handling the Q&A session. With this book, both Ph.D. students and seasoned scientists with conference experience will develop their own presentation style and enjoy sharing their work with audiences worldwide. Inside, you will find practical tips, techniques, and tricks to efficiently prepare your presentations, along with checklists and templates for a smooth and organized process. Additionally, a dedicated chapter explores the unique challenges and recommendations for virtual conferences, helping you make a seamless transition to online presentations.
Invest in your scientific career by investing in your presentation skills. Let this book be your trusted companion on the path to success.
Front matter, scientific talks—effective communication that assists with the conveyance of research results.
Barbara Hey
From the collation of material to the scientific talk—preparation as the key to success, visualisation in the talk—design slides in a professional manner, communicating methods, results and knowledge gains—the talk and presentation, remarkable and useful things—a toolbox for scientific talks, mastering virtual presentations, authors and affiliations, about the author.
Barbara Hey, a seasoned trainer and a consultant at the Centre for European Economic Research (Mannheim, Germany) since 1998, has studied Business Studies in Germany and the UK. With expertise in professional presentation, moderation, and communication, she provides training, coaching, and counseling for researchers and executives, specializing in enhancing their skills and effectiveness.
Book Title : Mastering Scientific Presentations
Book Subtitle : Unlocking Your Communication Skills
Authors : Barbara Hey
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-44184-5
Publisher : Springer Wiesbaden
eBook Packages : Business and Management , Business and Management (R0)
Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2024
Softcover ISBN : 978-3-658-44183-8 Published: 30 March 2024
eBook ISBN : 978-3-658-44184-5 Published: 29 March 2024
Edition Number : 1
Number of Pages : XII, 190
Number of Illustrations : 54 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
Topics : Human Resource Management , Research Skills , Groupwork and Presentation , Career Skills , Social Work and Community Development , Education, general
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Putting together a scientific presentation might be a pretty challenging undertaking. However, with careful preparation and planning, it can turn into a rewarding experience.
In this article, we’ll discuss the purpose, presentation methods, and structure of an excellent scientific ppt, as well as share essential tips on how to introduce a scientific presentation, so dive in!
A scientific presentation is a formal way to share an observation, propose a hypothesis, show and explain the findings of a study, or summarize what has been discovered or is still to be studied on the subject.
Professional scientific presentations aid in disseminating research and raise peers’ awareness of novel approaches, findings, or issues. They make conferences memorable for both the audience and the presenter.
The three major presentation methods that are frequently used at large conferences include platform (oral), poster, and lecture presentations. Although appearing seemingly different at times, they all have the same requirements and difficulties for successful execution, and their main prerequisite is you, the presenter.
An effective presenter should have led the research, taken part in the analysis, and written the abstract and manuscript, which means the presenter should be fully knowledgeable about the topic at hand.
For the majority of scientific presentations, it is advisable to follow the traditional structure:
Title → Introduction/Background → Methods → Results → Discussion → Conclusion → Acknowledgements.
The main elements that make up the introduction include the background of the study, the research problem, the significance of the research, the research objectives, research questions, and/or hypotheses.
The background is the premise upon which the study’s problem is built. It usually consists of one or two sentences.
After the background usually comes the research problem, which is made up of one or two sentences with clear statements. These can be anything from conflicting findings to a knowledge gap your scientific presentation PowerPoint addresses.
The justification part should briefly outline how the findings will contribute to the problem’s solution. It can also discuss the possible implications of the study in not more than two sentences.
Next comes the purpose of the study, which has to outline your goals and relate to the study’s title.
You may wrap up the introduction by listing the objectives of your study, research questions, or hypotheses. The study’s objectives describe the specific steps that must be taken to accomplish the goal. Please note that the objective can be turned into a research question and a research question, in turn, into a hypothesis.
This section of your presentation should include a relevant study area map. It is recommended that you adequately describe the research design and use diagrams like flowcharts whenever possible.
Additionally, explain the procedures for obtaining the data for each objective, research question, and hypothesis. Finally, state the statistical analysis procedures used.
An oral presentation will always include both the results and the discussion. However, the slides will only contain the results.
You can use tables and figures together, but they shouldn’t be applied to the same data set.
The results of your scientific PowerPoint presentation have to be organized in the same order as the objectives, research questions, and hypotheses. Still, describing and discussing the obtained results should be done off-head.
During your presentation, explain the findings in the tables and figures, pointing out any patterns. Also, discuss the results by assigning reasons to patterns, comparing the results with earlier research, and offering interpretations and implications for your findings.
Your presentation’s final section should offer closing remarks on the study’s key findings, not restate the results. Discuss the findings and their implications and make recommendations for additional research briefly and concisely.
If you include in-text references in your slides, always provide external references on a separate slide.
Prepare your title slide before beginning the research’s introduction section. Your name, your institution or department, the title of the presentation, and its date should all be included on the title slide.
Last but not least, your second slide should include the scientific presentation outline.
Color is a powerful tool for setting a pattern. It can make it easier for the reader or the audience to follow you and comprehend the connection between the subjects you are presenting.
According to our design experts, you have to create a natural flow of information and emphasize information that the reader has to see first (e.g., title or main image). Secondary data has to be less prominent, not to take priority. This all can be achieved through colors. Striking colors will quickly grab the audience’s attention. Meanwhile, a grayscale will be more discreet, making it ideal for secondary information.
Pro tip: Select one or two primary colors for your presentation, then use them repeatedly on the slides.
Font selection is crucial for the overall success of your presentation. Therefore, make sure your text is simple to see and read even if the person is sitting a considerable distance from the screen. Separate paragraphs and headings and stick with three different fonts at most (e.g., Helvetica, Gotham).
Remember that your audience will be looking at the slides while you are speaking, so avoid putting too much text on them.
Pro tip: Use a different font for your headline but ensure it doesn’t create the “comic sans” effect.
Visual aids such as charts, graphs, and images are indispensable for effectively conveying information and grabbing the audience’s attention, but you must choose them carefully.
Make sure to move from this to this:
Pro tip: If there’s a diagram, chart, or other visual that you don’t plan to walk your audience through, cut it.
Here’s a good scientific presentation example to follow:
Now that you know how to make a scientific presentation and what to pay attention to when creating one, let’s move on to the scientific presentation tips from the best designers of our professional presentation services .
Tip #1: Know your audience
View the presentation as a dialogue with the audience rather than a monologue, and always consider the interests and expertise of your audience. This will help you tailor your scientific presentation to their level of knowledge and interests.
Tip #2: Make use of PowerPoint
PowerPoint is an excellent tool for presenting scientific research if appropriately used. Generally, this involves inserting a lot of relevant visuals and minimum words with a font size of 24 points and above.
Tip #3: Tell your audience about your research rather than its background
Focus on discussing the research that you are directly contributing to. The background information should only include the bare minimum. People don’t attend conferences to hear a review of previous work. They do so to learn about new and intriguing research, so use the allotted time to your advantage.
Tip #4: Practice and rehearse
Always practice your presentation of science thoroughly before giving it to anyone. By doing so, you’ll gain a better understanding of the material and make sure your presentation flows smoothly.
Tip #5: Keep to the time limit
A basic rule of thumb is to keep your presentation to 80% of the allotted time. If you are given 55 minutes to deliver your presentation, prepare 45 minutes worth of information: 15 minutes for introduction, 25 for the main aspects of your presentation, 5 to summarize and conclude, and leave the last ten for a Q&A session.
A well-done abstract, a set of carefully chosen viewgraphs, a brief “cheat sheet,” and an outline (perhaps placed in the corner of each viewgraph) should all help you stay on track throughout your presentation.
Tip #6: Don’t read from the slides
Reading from slides is commonplace in various fields, but do you really find it interesting to hear someone read their conference presentation? If reading is an absolute must, then our experts advise you to do it in such a way that no one in the audience notices it. Writing your text in a conversational tone and reading with emotion, conviction, and variations in tone is a great trick to achieve that.
Tip #7: Summarize the key points
Reiterate your main message and briefly touch on your main points in your conclusion. By doing so, you can ensure that your audience will remember the most crucial details of your presentation.
Tip #8: Use effective communication techniques
When delivering your presentation, use appropriate body language and effective communication techniques. These include maintaining eye contact with the audience, speaking clearly and at a reasonable volume, and conveying enthusiasm about your work. Remember, genuine enthusiasm accounts for 90% of a speaker’s success.
Tip #9: Engage the audience
Always ask questions and use polls or other interactive tools to interact with your audience and encourage discussion.
Tip #10: Dress for success
When preparing to give a scientific presentation, dress up professionally. This will help convey two crucial messages: you respect your audience and are willing to conform.
Following the above science presentation structure and tips, you can create clear, informative, and engaging slides that effectively communicate your message to the audience. However, if you’re still wondering how to start a scientific presentation or need a PowerPoint makeover , don’t hesitate to contact our dedicated design experts!
At SlidePeak, we know that building a visually captivating presentation may be a real challenge for researchers and scientists. That’s why we’ve developed several services, including presentation redesign and creation from scratch by qualified scientific, technical, and medical designers who can make your work stand out both in science and creativity.
With over a decade of experience in presentation design, SlidePeak is trusted by thousands of researchers and scientists worldwide. So, submit your scientific presentation order today, and let dedicated experts turn your ideas into professional slides that will help you make an impact!
For many young scientists, the hardest part of a presentation is the introduction. How do you set the stage for your talk so your audience knows exactly where you're going?
Here's how: follow the the CCQH pattern -- C ontext, C omplication, Q uestion, H ypothesis. Fit your research into this pattern, and you will be able to introduce your work in just a few minutes, using just 1 or 2 slides.
The video below show how to use the CCQH pattern using an example of published scientific research. You will see how powerful -- and how adapatable -- the CCQH pattern is.
Make sure you select 720p HD on the video (bottom right corner) for best resolution and so scientific illustrations and figures are clear.
You can also find this video, and others related to scientific communication, at the CLIMB youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/climbprogram
Northwestern bioscience programs.
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Professional powerpoint templates and slide design examples for science talks, academic conferences, and graduate thesis presentations..
Most presentation templates are too cheesy for research talks. Scientists need slides that allow for quick customization and that make it easy to illustrate all the key points of a research project. This article shows well-designed scientific presentation slide examples and also links to fully customizable professional templates.
Whether you are creating a research presentation for the first time or have years of experience, the PowerPoint templates linked below have user-friendly slides that quickly allow you to create science talks that will engage your audience and make your main points clear.
My top recommendation for creating effective technical presentations is to use simple slide designs and a recurring theme for the main points that allow your audience to easily follow your data story. The sections below show scientific slide design examples to help you clearly show your results.
The best title slide designs for scientific talks have an easy-to-understand title and an engaging image. The title slide is the first impression for your audience and is most effective when you remove excess technical terms. The title text should be much more simplified than your scientific publication. The examples below show two versions of title slides from the templates, one with a dark background and one with a light background.
After title slides, the next part of your presentation should use background slides that show both the scientific concepts and also includes slides that engage the audience with the high-level purpose of your research or related entertaining images. Don't be afraid to connect to your audience with a joke or something personal about your role in the research.
The slide to the right shows an example of how to present the higher-level purpose of your research. Consider asking your audience "why is this important" and then show the relevance of the data to to medical treatments or fundamental science questions.
Another great way to maintain audience engagement for background information is to use slide designs that incorporate illustrations and use very little text. Most people do not read slides, so illustrated images go a long way to improve audience comprehension. Explore free online courses to learn how to incorporate illustrations and images into your scientific presentations.
After presenting background information, it is important to create a series of slides that show the main point(s) of your research. Good main point slide designs use a consistent theme and do not overload each slide with too many details.
One design tip to keep your data-focused slides simple is to limit the presentation to only one to two core concepts per slide. The examples shown here illustrate how to edit the science PowerPoint template slides to create effective research slide designs with simple concepts and minimal text.
Good scientific presentations also include a take home message slide that clearly summarizes the one idea that you want people to remember or to take action on after your talk.
This slide should have a unique design that stands out from the rest of the slides to let your audience know that this is essential information.
Finally, your talk should end with a thoughtful acknowledgement slide that matches the overall presentation theme. Make sure to include all of your collaborators and make it easy to read.
Good visual design is an essential part of creating effective research presentations and below is a summary of the slide design tips provided in this article. To further your science communication training, you can also consider signing up for free online courses to expand your scientific illustration and data visualization skills.
Interested in free design templates and training.
Explore scientific illustration templates and courses by creating a Simplified Science Publishing Log In. Whether you are new to data visualization design or have some experience, these resources will improve your ability to use both basic and advanced design tools.
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Discover the world of science through the lens of compelling visuals with our curated collection of the 25+ best science PowerPoint templates. Perfect for anyone seeking to catch the attention of a scientific audience, these designs exude sophistication while maintaining a touch of simplicity. The templates range from paid to free, ensuring there’s something for everyone, regardless of budget.
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Playful astronomy science powerpoint template.
This PowerPoint template provides a useful slideshow layout for science-related presentations. Offering 35 distinctive slides, this easy-to-customize template features a 16:9 aspect ratio, drag-and-drop picture placeholder, free licensed fonts, and an array of editable elements such as size, position, and shape colors.
This is a creative science PowerPoint template you can use to enhance your presentations. It comes with 35 unique slides, features easily customizable shapes, colors, sizes, and positions, and incorporates a drag-and-drop picture placeholder. Included are convenient mockup devices, with all elements fine-tuned to your brand’s style and content.
This a clean, elegant, and creative PowerPoint template for both corporate and personal scientific presentations. In an easy-to-use and customizable format, this template increases the quality of your presentation considerably. With useful bonus features like a 16:9 widescreen ratio, master slide layouts, and free font usage, it also comes with a helpful dguide.
This PowerPoint template is perfect for those seeking to enhance their science-themed presentations. Perfect for geology and science slideshows as well as academic research, this template offers a professional, captivating layout with features like themed fonts, color schemes, and placeholder images.
This PowerPoint template will enhance your presentations with intuitive, visually stunning graphics that convey complex ideas effectively. This universally applicable template is equipped with unique features such as 24 adaptable slide designs, an aspect ratio size of 16:9, free licensed font use, and a drag-and-drop picture placeholder.
An exceptional PowerPoint template for any scientific or research-based presentation. Its features, including infographic packs, variations of unique slides, an editable chart, and elements, are all designed to optimize your presentation. The template is easy to use with a focus on improving your overall presentation goals.
This is a versatile, fully editable PowerPoint template, ideal for use across businesses, agencies, or educational activities. With a creative style, it boasts easy-to-use files, 16 slides, and an engaging design with attractive colors and a fully customizable design.
This is a dynamic PowerPoint template perfect for science and research presentations. It includes 20 unique slides, handmade infographics, and a light background. Fully customizable, it can help elevate your presentation experience to another level.
This PowerPoint template is perfect for enhancing your scientific presentations. With 35 customizable slides, auto-adjustment picture placeholders, and free license font utilization, it guarantees a professional and personalized presentation. Drag-and-drop mockup devices are also available.
This PowerPoint template is designed to make science presentations more engaging and impressive. It includes elements such as varied unique slides, an easy-to-use layout, editable charts, and a preset color scheme. The template offers an infographic pack suited for every stage of your project development.
The Science Education PowerPoint template is a versatile asset for a variety of business needs, from company profiles to marketing endeavors. This template includes 30 editable slides in a high-definition widescreen format, giving you the ability to customize elements, colors, shapes, and charts to your liking. Simply note, images shown in the template previews are not included.
The Science Kids PowerPoint Template is a fun and engaging presentation tool that enhances your audience’s viewing experience. Comprising over 30 unique slides in widescreen (16:9) format, this easy-to-use template features editable charts and elements, a preset color scheme, and distinct font theme. Ideal for various stages of business development, it requires user’s own image stock. Your satisfaction is guaranteed with this exciting template.
The Data Science PowerPoint Template is a unique, modern, and versatile tool that’s perfect for creating engaging pitch decks or marketing kits. This template packs 37 professionally-designed slides, each different in layout to maintain viewer interest. User-friendly features include easy-to-use image placeholders, editable charts, unique mock-up devices, and vector-based icons. Modify it to cater to any presentation need, utilizing its strong focus on typography and usability. Note, preview images aren’t included. This is a third-party creative asset definitely worth exploring.
The Science Research PowerPoint Template is a versatile and modern presentation tool, perfect for research, lab reports, business pitches, and more. With 30 unique, editable slides and a sleek light background, it’s a refreshing, easy-to-use asset for all your presentation needs. The package includes PowerPoint files, XML Files for color schemes, an icon pack, and a help file. Please note, images are not included.
The Science Education Presentation Template is a modern, professional PowerPoint tool perfect for enhancing your next presentation. With a total of 20+ slides including handcrafted infographics and galleries, this easy-to-use template offers editable graphics and a drag & drop picture placeholder. It’s created by UIGO Design, ensuring pixel-perfect quality. Please note, preview images are not included.
The Science Grow PowerPoint Template is a remarkable presentation toolkit marked with 30 unique slides, customizable light and dark backgrounds, and handmade infographics. Developed by RRGraph Design, known for their commitment to client satisfaction, the package provides a comprehensive suite for conveying business development stages. With this resource, you’re ready to build an engaging, enhanced business narrative that stands out among competitors. Note that images are not included.
The Science Education PowerPoint Template is a versatile and easily editable asset—ideal for business, school or educational usage. With over 30 clean, modern slides in a high-res 1920×1080 pixel format, this template helps to make presentations more visually engaging. Furthermore, customization is made simple thanks to the Slidemaster feature and it includes a free font and device mockup.
The Education Science PowerPoint Infographics is a versatile and modern template collection, perfect for presenting science-related topics in a professional setting. It includes 20+ unique slides that are easy to edit and fully customizable. Compatible with all versions of PowerPoint, these cleverly designed infographics can support any presentation, making complex scientific concepts more understandable and engaging.
Explore the wonders of science education with Schoology’s professionally designed PowerPoint. With 30 bespoke slides providing clean, modern visuals, it’s both versatile and perfectly suited for educational needs. Cafefully designed for wide acceptability and full editability, this tool offers a fresh way to impress audiences and convey information. Note: Pictures are not included, enhancing space for personalization.
The Laboratory & Science Research PowerPoint Template, Biopharm, offers a professional and creative blend of unique layouts. Perfect for presenting various fields such as biology, chemistry, healthcare, and more, this template is loaded with 30 unique slides. Designed with a strong focus on usability and interesting typography, Biopharm makes editing a breeze with features like resizable graphics and a drag-and-drop interface.
Political Science PowerPoint v591 is a professionally-crafted, contemporary template ideal for agencies or businesses. This fully customizable template allows you to easily modify colors, text, and photos. It boasts a sleek minimalistic design featuring 30 unique slides among a total of 150 slides in a widescreen layout. Also included are five distinctive color schemes and resizable vector icons, all based on a master slide.
The Science and Research Presentation Template is a thoughtfully designed asset combining aesthetics and functionality in every slide. It includes over 30 unique slides, with diverse layout styles, hundreds of useful infographics, vectors, and charts, all customizable to your needs. This asset is ideal for creating impactful business or research presentations, offering over 90 color themes, and light or dark background options. Provided by RRGraph Design, a team committed to client satisfaction, this asset is an effective tool to meet your presentation needs.
The Science Education PowerPoint Template is a modern and creative asset ideal for both personal and commercial use. This unique, professionally-designed template is versatile, fitting the needs of the creative industry, businesses, and agencies. It boasts 150 total slides, 30 slides per template, 5 color variations, device mockups, and pixel-perfect illustrations. The template also allows all graphics to be resized and edited, customizable to your needs.
The Sinara Science PowerPoint Template is a versatile, modern design with a gradient theme, ideally suited for fields like technology, medical, or chemistry. It offers over 700 total slides, 30 unique slide templates, and three color themes. With features including picture placeholders and both light and dark backgrounds, the template is easy to edit directly in PowerPoint.
Garnie Science PowerPoint template improves how you present your business proposition. It’s got a clean layout that structures your content, helping your audience quickly grasp your message. Plus, it’s easy to edit! With over 30 creative and innovative slides, comprehensive help files, and fully editable shapes, it’s the resource you need for engaging presentations. However, note that images and cover mockups in previews are not included in the download.
The Science Laboratory PowerPoint Template, branded as “ScienLabs,” offers a simple, clean, and modern design perfect for any scientific presentation needs. It includes 25 slides with resizable and editable graphics, a 16:9 wide screen layout, and a drag-and-drop image placeholder. Though images shown are for preview only, the template also provides free fonts and a help file for maximum usability. Ideal for the healthcare, pharmaceutical, or biotechnology industry.
Opt for the Data Science Presentation Template PowerPoint to make your presentations memorable and impactful. This versatile template features 10 editable slides, customizable graphics, and uses recommended free web fonts. It operates on a 16:9 wide screen ratio for an immersive visual experience, ensuring clarity in your message and leaving a powerful impression on your audience. Note, images are used for preview only.
Localab’s Science Research PowerPoint Presentation is a versatile and impressive template providing ultra-modern designs. It’s perfect for a wide range of topics, including but not limited to research, science, health, and technology. With resizable and editable graphics based on Master Slides, it’s easy to customize to fit your presentation needs. Notably, it’s particularly fitting for presentations related to pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, or innovation.
The Neolabs Laboratory & Science Research PowerPoint is a dynamic, visually engaging platform tailored to present your scientific research and findings. It’s versatile, catering to various scientific fields, and laid out for clear communication to both academic and non-technical viewers. Highlights include resizable graphics, free web fonts, wide screen ratio, and an easy drag-and-drop, editable format. Ideal for professional presentations in corporate, creative, and academic contexts.
The Genetics Laboratory Science Research PowerPoint Template is a versatile, professionally designed presentation aid that’s easy to edit and customize. Employing a modern, clean aesthetic, it’s perfect for businesses, creative agencies, and designers needing to communicate complex topics effectively. The template, provided by Annora Studio, features a range of unique layouts, and uses free web fonts and resizable graphics to enhance your presentation’s appeal. Note: demo images aren’t included in the download.
The Enzilabs Laboratory Science Research Template is a polished, modern PowerPoint tool perfect for any professional or business-related presentation. With 36 fully customizable slides featuring editable graphics and free web fonts, it’s especially useful for those involved in scientific research or lab work. It also offers drag-and-drop convenience, master slide-based design, and a wide 16:9 screen ratio. However, demo images are not included.
The Life Science PowerPoint Presentation Template is a modern, professional tool perfect for enhancing business meetings or lectures. Designed with educators and students in mind, this template includes 30 customizable slides that effortlessly translate your data into a compelling visual story. The template also employs free web fonts, drag-and-drop picture placeholders, and is fully adjustable for widescreen display. Try it out for an efficient, engaging presentation experience.
Labvire Science Research & Laboratory PowerPoint Template offers a sophisticated, modern design, perfect for any presentation – ranging from business to lab research projects. Created with a keen attention to detail, its features include more than 40 unique premade slides, editable charts, and image placeholders. Despite its sleek design, this template is user-friendly, crafted for optimal usability and is easy to customize.
The Science Academy PowerPoint Template is a comprehensive tool designed to enhance your presentations. It comes with 45 unique slides and over 90 XML files, featuring a light and dark background option, and a handmade infographic, ensuring every presentation is exceptional. This customizable template, made by RRGraph Design, is perfect for all stages of business development, helping you stand out amongst competitors and propel your brand forward.
The Neuralight Science Google Slides Template is a user-friendly, customizable resource perfect for science and research presentations. Its modern, sleek, and futuristic design, with 30+ unique slides in a 16:9 wide-screen ratio, is exportable to Google Slides through PowerPoint alone. Every feature, including editable icons and elements, can be resized without losing clarity, personalized to your needs, or removed entirely.
The world changes every day; science is not static. The last year brought us a lot of discoveries in the medical, technological, and scientific spheres. In 2022, the demand for unique and original PowerPoint templates for scientific presentations became even higher, than in the previous year.
Check our list of the best templates for scientific presentations to make the greatest speech or give the best seminar the world has ever seen.
Best scientific powerpoint templates:.
This amazing set consists of 6 outstanding scientific presentation PowerPoint templates. Thus, you have a wide choice of variants for how your cool speech will look.
One more bundle that consists of 2500 unique and awesome slides that will make a scientific presentation look and sound captivating.
Meet Triangle, a perfect decision for those who can’t imagine their life without aesthetic and minimalist geometry designs and diagrams. You will get 30 original and modern slides in total.
We love this one to the moon and back because of its adorable illustrations and powerful layouts.
If you are a fan of bright infographics, this scientific presentation PPT template is definitely for you. You can choose between 30 dark and 30 light slides.
Here’s another colorful PowerPoint scientific presentation template that can be customized in GoogleSlides, and Keynote as well.
This is one of the best choices if you need to create a good eye-catching presentation for chemical engineering.
Need something to present new developments in the electrical engineering sphere? Meet these 50 slides of cool PPT templates for scientific presentations.
Your speech will be a winning one with this modern and even futuristic science PowerPoint theme.
Check out this futuristic example of an amazing scientific presentation template that you can choose for showing your discoveries.
Of course, we have something special for technology scientists. Be the best at the workshop with this stylish scientific PowerPoint background.
A very minimalistic and eye-catching template for scientists who adore being at the center of their audience’s attention.
Of course, we couldn’t leave you without a super-cool Star Wars presentation template. This one comes with a bonus, by the way.
This amazingly designed template includes cool infographics, various charts, original picture placeholders, and many other details that will help to make a creative and eye-catching presentation about technologies and science.
You also can buy any scientific product for Google Slides . But even if there is no software tag in the name of a template, don’t be confused – you can use most of the templates with any comfortable software you prefer.
Sinara – science powerpoint template.
This design, created in a pleasant color theme, contains very powerful infographics and drag & drop picture placeholders, in addition to different layouts. You can use it to make an interesting presentation in just a few clicks.
You can get this fully editable multipurpose scientific template and create an unforgettable technical presentation for your audience. In addition to original picture placeholders, this design includes amazing infographics that are a crucial addition to any successful speech.
Everything you want to say around the important topic of your scientific report will be ideally supplemented by this great modern template. It will catch your audience’s attention thanks to the red and white color theme and the pack of medical stock images that are included.
The eye-catching color theme of this design won’t let any viewer get bored with your presentation. Unique 3D models of chemical elements will totally wow the audience.
Simpler means “better” nowadays, and this is exactly what this modern and clear template is about. A wide variety of schemes and icons will help you to add uniqueness to every piece of your delicious presentation.
This design contains creative, professional, multipurpose, and original layouts. You can use Medicine for any kind of scientific presentation – medicare, technological, ecological, etc.
This sleek and professional template has a unique design and suits scientific presentations of all kinds. No doubt, supported by this great design, your speech will be very powerful.
The minimalistic and modern design of these slides will truly underline the importance of the information you need to give to the audience. The simple, yet robust infographics help to make your lecture more comprehensible.
If you need a wow-template to speak about your new scientific discoveries, you have just found it. All the elements included in these amazing slides, such as charts, colors, shapes, etc. are very easy to customize according to your personal needs.
Novalabs is a perfect option for those who work in scientific research or the laboratory industry. This modern design allows you to put the data into your presentation in a quick and simple way.
Very light and simple presentation template which can make your scientific or educational lecture more appealing. It contains original illustrations, a handcrafted infographic, as well as the perfect combination of color theme and fonts.
Free your imagination and let it fly to the moon with these awesome entertaining graphics. The slides in blue and purple colors were created to make your presentation look engaging and deep.
Talented designers created this minimalistic template for those who don’t want to overload their scientific speech with lots of images and schemes.
The entertaining level of this charming science ppt template is very high. So download it and start preparing your great presentation right now.
Prepare your promotion bid with this futuristic template and show your data science company in the best light to your clients.
Just look at these bright and eye-catching colors! This outstanding template will definitely help you make an unforgettable presentation.
It takes just a few minutes to put the data you need to present about your research into this cool scientific PowerPoint template for free.
We hope that you will find the scientific presentation design of your dreams and start creating your winning presentation right now. May the creative force be with you! 🙂
How to make scientific presentation.
Are you preparing manuscript for journal publication? Are you making scientific poster for the conference? Are you preparing Powerpoint presentation for your class project or final defense? This course will help you design an impactful publication and presentation.
This theme is based on a learning center structure. The background is blue, and it is conspicuous for the textures in the corners.
Here are a few frequently asked questions about the PowerPoint Templates for Science
Of course, the main trend is minimalism and simplicity in everything. Thus, when you are looking for an infographics set, make sure that it is simple and elegant. Certainly, you want to get something eye-catching yet it shouldn’t be too bright and vulgar. So try and follow the minimalism trend.
Well, it’s pretty obvious – in medical ones. To be more precise, such graphics will work for presentations about various diseases, leaflets, posters, etc.
Pretty much all the examples I gave you in this very article. They all are quite eye-catching and bright yet still have a modern minimalist design. So look through them one more time, pick the one you like the best, and get it.
If you decided to go with a premium option, you have to be rather careful with the marketplace you are going to buy it from. I personally, recommend such trustworthy marketplaces as MasterBundles or TemplateMonster .
What are your concerns?
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Disclosure: MasterBundles website page may contain advertising materials that may lead to us receiving a commission fee if you purchase a product. However, this does not affect our opinion of the product in any way and we do not receive any bonuses for positive or negative ratings.
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Giving a scientific presentation can be a daunting task. But with the right tools, it can be a lot easier. In this blog post, we will discuss the 10 best scientific presentation PowerPoint templates. We will also talk about what makes these templates so great and how they can help you create an amazing presentation. So, if you are looking to give a stellar scientific presentation, read on!
The following are the 10 Best Scientific Presentation PowerPoint Templates
1. Science and Technology Innovation
The first template on our list of Scientific Presentation PowerPoint Templates is Science and Technology Innovation. The Science and Technology Innovation PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
2. Modern Cold Gradient Science and Technology for White Collar
The Modern Cold Gradient Science and Technology for White Collar template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
3. Science and Technology Education Report
The Science and Technology Education Report template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
4. Simple Science and Technology Summary
The Simple Science and Technology Summary PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
5. Gradient Science and Technology Report
The Gradient Science and Technology Report PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
6. IT Science and Technology Summary Report
The IT Science and Technology Summary Report PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
7. Simple Scientific Education Presentation
The Simple Scientific Education Presentation PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
8. Fresh Education Teaching Presentation
The Fresh Education Teaching Presentation PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
9. Cartoon Planet Education Presentation
The Cartoon Planet Education Presentation PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
10. Green Cartoon Education Presentation
The Green Cartoon Education Presentation PowerPoint template is perfect for scientific presentations. It comes with a modern design and plenty of features to help you create a great presentation.
If you are looking for the best scientific presentation PowerPoint templates, look no further than the ones listed above. These templates are sure to help you create an amazing presentation. And don't forget, you can get these templates for free by downloading the WPS office app. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today!
15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software.
Presentations at school are not just an everyday task: they are your chance to show you are a bright student and demonstrate your vision. Adding some creativity and your personal touch to your presentations will provide an extra level of interest and help your presentation remain in people’s memories.
You don’t need to be a techie, either. Software packages such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Canva are easy to use and provide many colorful devices to make your ideas visually striking.
To create this article, we invited experienced presentation designers and effective presenters to share tips and original ideas for presentations that will help students succeed. So, choose an interesting topic from our list and create a presentation using the tips from our experts!
As you already know, the right topic needs to appeal to you, fit the occasion, and hold the interest of your audience. Here's a more detailed checklist of the characteristics of the best presentation topics:
Thus, when selecting presentation topics for students, consider these factors to create an excellent presentation. You can also explore what a good essay topic looks like to get more inspiration and ideas for your presentation.
So, check out our list of 100 PowerPoint presentation topics for students, which has been thoroughly structured to make it easier for a school or university student to choose a topic!
You must pick your subject carefully if you have 10 minutes to make an impression. It has to be brief and compelling. Here are ten short and memorable ideas for presentation topics:
If you need help creating a great topic, consider consulting expert writers. The PowerPoint presentation writing service can provide engaging presentation examples for students. Moreover, experienced authors will help you with any part of your presentation if required.
School presentations for high school students can be a perfect way to introduce exciting topics and help them broaden their educational horizons. Here are ten PowerPoint presentation topics for higher school students:
Business presentations must be informative, explaining industry trends, strategies, and innovations. Here are the ten most impressive business slideshow ideas for students:
>> Find more business research paper topics for presentation at StateOfWriting!
Medical and nursing presentations usually focus on today's issues, innovations, and new or best practices. This list covers ten interesting topics for presentation for healthcare professionals and students:
Good management is at the heart of a successful enterprise. The following ten creative presentation ideas explore leadership, strategy, and operational effectiveness:
Psychology is a human science that seeks to understand the mechanics of our minds and behaviour. Here are ten topics to do a presentation on psychology that are sure to captivate and educate any audience:
Life comes in many forms, and biology is the science that explores them all. Here are ten easy topics for presentation on biology:
Physics helps people understand the general laws of the Universe. Here are ten unique topics for presentation in college:
Chemistry is central to many innovations around us and our daily experiences. Let’s explore ten presentation topic ideas explaining chemistry from practical applications and theoretical research:
Shaping the perfect presentation is vital to persuade the audience to listen. Mastering the art of presentation can impact your success. Our experts have kindly provided basic advices for a successful presentation:
To be effective with presentations, you must know your audience, have a killer beginning, use stage-appropriate visuals, practice, and use a strong engagement hook.
To sum up, picking interesting presentation ideas for students and adding a touch of creativity to them can turn school assignments into memorable experiences. You can also use visual aids or UK writing service to make your presentation eye-catching and showcase your unique perspectives and insights. Your efforts will impress and inspire those who listen.
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By Mawunyo Gbogbo
ABC Entertainment
Topic: Olympic Games
Rachael "Raygun" Gunn did not score a single point at the Paris Olympics. ( Getty Images: Elsa )
Since Australian breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn failed to score a single point in any of her Olympic bouts, many have asked how she qualified for the Games.
Fellow breaker and anthropologist Lucas Marie says she won her qualification "fair and square" last year, but African American man Malik Dixon has criticised the Olympic body for letting her in.
Breaking will not be an event at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games — a decision made before Raygun's performance.
The 2024 Paris Olympics marked breaking's debut as a sport at the global event, with 36-year-old lecturer and breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn representing Australia for the first time.
Having failed to win a single point in any of her Olympic bouts, Raygun quickly became a viral sensation.
The question on many people's minds now is: How did she even qualify?
Lucas Marie is a breaker who has competed, performed, taught and judged breaking competitions over the past 25 years. He's also an anthropologist who recently co-authored an article with Gunn.
He says the answer to that question is simple.
Lucas Marie recently co-authored an article with Raygun. ( Supplied )
"There was an Oceania qualifier in which any B-boy or B-girl from Australia [or] New Zealand could enter, and that was in Sydney in October 2023," he told ABC News.
"And leading up to that, there were a lot of other events in which breakers were competing.
"She won those battles fair and square and won the qualification in Sydney.
"And it wasn't really a surprise to anyone.
"She's been fairly consistent, winning or coming second or third at a lot of breaking events in Australia for the last five to 10 years."
Marie said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Raygun's performance.
"It's not like gymnastics where there's this kind of agreed-upon standard," he said.
"It's always had a rawness to it. It's always had an improvisational kind of quality. And I think looking different and trying different stuff has always been celebrated.
"And I think Raygun, in a way, was just expressing a core kind of hip hop trait in a way a lot of breakers do."
He described her efforts as bold.
"I thought — and this is how I judge a lot of breaking events — I thought, 'Oh, she's making some really interesting choices to mimic Australian animals.' And you can kind of see the choices that she's making in the moment."
Team Australia chef de mission Anna Meares insisted after Raygun's performance that she was the best breaker the country had to offer. But is this true?
Lucas Marie has competed, performed, taught and judged breaking competitions for more than 25 years. ( Supplied: momentsby.naz )
"It's sometimes just who's performing better on the day," Marie said.
"And at the qualification event in which she won, and other events in which she's won, she performed better on that day and won the ticket.
"That doesn't mean she's the best. It doesn't really work like that.
"I think she's a great breaker. She won the qualification. She's won other events in the past, and she was a good representative for Australia at that competition."
Asked whether there were B-girls in Perth, regional Victoria or rural Brisbane who might have qualified but could not afford to travel to Sydney for the tryouts, Marie agreed this was possible.
"Of course, there's breakers all over the country that maybe should have been in that event, but they weren't."
Breaking will not carry over to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, a decision made before Raygun's battle.
Marie described this as sad.
"Maybe, based on the ratings, they'll reassess that and maybe allocate some medals to breaking," he said.
"I really hope that's the case, and I hope that for other breakers who want to compete in it as a dance sport."
Marie said that at the end of the day people should remember they were dealing with a human.
"As a friend of Rachael's, there's a human being who's getting a lot of negative attention," he said.
"I think people kind of miss that sometimes and forget the human aspect of all this."
Malik Dixon is an African American who has been living in Australia for more than a decade and is a Sydney University graduate.
He said Raygun made a total "mockery" out of breaking at the Olympics.
Malik Dixon says too many people feel entitled to African American culture. ( Supplied )
"She was dressed like a member of the cricket team or an Australian PE teacher, and from that point it just seemed like satire," Mr Dixon told ABC News.
"It just looked like somebody who was toying with the culture and didn't know how culturally significant it was being the first time in the Olympics and just how important it was to people who really cherish hip hop and one of the elements of hip hop, which is breakdancing.
"It made me think, was Borat her breakdancing coach?"
Mr Dixon said too many people felt entitled to African American culture.
"The African American space has been one where we've shared our community so much and without any restraints, any barriers, roadblocks, obstacles, any gatekeepers, that essentially what should have been African American cultural capital is just shared, which is cool," he said.
"We like to share, right?
"We shared 400 years of free labour.
"To see Rachael in her attempt to be a part of the culture just be grossly underwhelming made it seem like she didn't take it seriously."
Mr Dixon criticised the body that qualified Raygun, saying she devalued breaking with her performance.
"Whatever governing body nominated her as Australia's entrant into the Olympics either did not understand the assignment or didn't really believe in the integrity or significance of breakdancing, because if they did they would just say, rather than disrespect the culture, we're just not ready to send an applicant this year."
He said Raygun was extremely audacious and not self-aware.
"You've got to know your role, know your position, know your limitation," he said.
"And I think that part of privilege is saying that there are no limits to what I can do.
"Part of privilege is having the authority to say that there are no limits and there are no requirements, there are no prerequisites to what I can do."
Raygun's degrees do not hold much water with Mr Dixon.
"Due to consumerism, this Foundational Black American product, which is hip hop, is global," he said.
"And even people who have no connection to any African Americans or any local or regional things that come out in these songs, they have become a part of the whole experience now.
"If I came in and said that I was an authority on Greek music and I was going against the grain of what the mainstream Greek musicians thought, or the school of thought, and I've said that I was the authority, people would check me on that.
"If I had a PhD in sprinting, does that qualify me to go against Noah Lyles? No, it doesn't."
He also doubts Raygun was the best breaker Australia had to offer.
"[There's] got to be somebody out here that's better than that! The kangaroo! The sprinkler! She did the sprinkler out there, man!" he said.
Should we lighten up? Mr Dixon does not believe so.
"Larrikinism is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card and to escape responsibility of how words or actions impact a hurt person," he said.
"But when the majority culture is offended, there's no playing around.
"This is a part of my culture, and I don't think Australians are in a place to tell me how I should feel about breakdancing being mocked on an international stage.
"People who don't have any or limited access to black people or hip hop culture now may see Rachael and her buffoonery as a representation of hip hop and black culture.
"People who were already side-eyeing breakdancing as an Olympic sport, Rachael Gunn has put the nail in that coffin.
"This might be the most viral clip of the whole Olympics. From a comedy standpoint, she's got it, but from an Olympics perspective, its regressive."
IMAGES
COMMENTS
First is a two part set of videos that walks you through organizing a presentation. Part 1 - Creating an Introduction for a 10-15 Minute Scientfic Presentation. Part 2 - Creating the Body of a 10-15 Minute Presentation: Design/Methods; Data Results, Conclusions. Two additional videos should prove useful: Designing PowerPoint Slides for a ...
Related Articles. This guide provides a 4-step process for making a good scientific presentation: outlining the scientific narrative, preparing slide outlines, constructing slides, and practicing the talk. We give advice on how to make effective slides, including tips for text, graphics, and equations, and how to use rehearsals of your talk to ...
7 Appearance: if you look good, you'll feel good, which will help you give a great speech. 8 Pauses: they give the audience time to think, and help them engage. 9 Body language: use ...
Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide. When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged.
Below is the summary of how to give an engaging talk that will earn respect from your scientific community. Step 1. Draft Presentation Outline. Create a presentation outline that clearly highlights the main point of your research. Make sure to start your talk outline with ideas to engage your audience and end your talk with a clear take-home ...
Here are 10 tips to help you present your scientific work and leave the audience wanting more. 1. Set the stage. Get your equipment ready and run through your slides if possible (use the "speaker ready" room if one is available). If you've never been in the venue, try getting there early and walk the room.
Tip 3: Deliver your talk with intention. Tip 4: Be adaptable and willing to adjust your presentation. Tip 5: Conclude your talk and manage questions confidently. Concluding thoughts. Other sources to help you give a good scientific presentation. Frequently Asked Questions about giving scientific presentations.
Scientific presentations rely heavily on auditory and visual learning, so props offer an alternative way of learning, kinesthetic learning. Although it may be difficult to incorporate props into every presentation, especially as online-based presentations become more popular, apps such as Aurasma may be a useful tool. ...
Simplify. The best science talks start with a process of simplifying - peeling back the layers of information and detail to get at the one core idea that you want to communicate. Over the course of your talk, you may present 2-3 key messages that relate to, demonstrate, provide examples of or underpin this idea.
In the video below, we show you the key principles for designing effective PowerPoint slides for a scientific presentation. Using examples from actual science presentations, we illustrate the following principles: Create each slide as a single message unit. Explicitly state that single message on the slide. Avoid bullet points-opt for word tables.
Below we propose a quick framework for creating a compelling scientific presentation in PowerPoint (+ some helpful templates!). 1. Open with a Research Question. Here's how to start a scientific presentation with ease: share your research question. On the first slide, briefly recap how your thought process went.
The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide ...
Here are his 10 keys to an engaging scientific presentation: 1) Be an Entertainer First: Before your science can wow your audience, they have to understand it. Before they can understand it, you must engage them with what you're saying. Look at your presentation from your audience's perspective and think about how they'll relate to your ...
About this book. This book is a comprehensive guidebook designed specifically for researchers. Drawing from over 25 years of practical experience in presentation training and lecture coaching, combined with the latest findings from brain research, this book equips you with the essential tools to excel in scientific communication.
12 steps to giving the BEST SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION — EVER! 1. Don't pre-load your presentation. The 5 minutes you spend fumbling with your USB stick will establish you as a real pro.
Layout. Keep the layout and style as consistent as possible. Every slide should have a heading. Try to limit bullets to no more than 7 lines. The reason for limiting text blocks to two lines is that when the text block goes on and on forever, people in the audience are going to have to make a huge effort to read the text, which will preclude ...
Tip #2: Make use of PowerPoint. PowerPoint is an excellent tool for presenting scientific research if appropriately used. Generally, this involves inserting a lot of relevant visuals and minimum words with a font size of 24 points and above. Tip #3: Tell your audience about your research rather than its background.
A 10-15 Minute Scientific Presentation, Part 1: Creating an Introduction. ... Make sure you select 720p HD on the video (bottom right corner) for best resolution and so scientific illustrations and figures are clear. You can also find this video, and others related to scientific communication, at the CLIMB youtube channel: ...
Professional PowerPoint templates and slide design examples for science talks, academic conferences, and graduate thesis presentations. Most presentation templates are too cheesy for research talks. Scientists need slides that allow for quick customization and that make it easy to illustrate all the key points of a research project.
Giving a Good Scientific Presentation. Prepared for the American Society of Primatologists by members of the ASP Education Committee: Edited by: Corinna Ross, Sara Hankerson, Mitchell Irwin, Anita Stone, and Dee Higley (2007) Original Credit: Lynne Miller, Ann Weaver, Christine Johnson. This document has been compiled in hopes of providing some ...
This PowerPoint template provides a useful slideshow layout for science-related presentations. Offering 35 distinctive slides, this easy-to-customize template features a 16:9 aspect ratio, drag-and-drop picture placeholder, free licensed fonts, and an array of editable elements such as size, position, and shape colors.
Sinara - Science PowerPoint Template. This design, created in a pleasant color theme, contains very powerful infographics and drag & drop picture placeholders, in addition to different layouts. You can use it to make an interesting presentation in just a few clicks. 720 Total slides. 3 Premade color themes (Green, Blue, Orange).
Giving a scientific presentation can be a daunting task. But with the right tools, it can be a lot easier. In this blog post, we will discuss the 10 best scientific presentation PowerPoint templates. We will also talk about what makes these templates so great and how they can help you create an amazing presentation. So, if you are looking to give a stellar scientific presentation, read on!
So, check out our list of 100 PowerPoint presentation topics for students, which has been thoroughly structured to make it easier for a school or university student to choose a topic! 10-Minute Presentation Ideas. You must pick your subject carefully if you have 10 minutes to make an impression. It has to be brief and compelling.
The 2024 Paris Olympics marked breaking's debut as a sport at the global event, with 36-year-old lecturer and breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn representing Australia for the first time.
The Spine Journal 24 (2024) S1âˆ'S61Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the North American Spine SocietyWednesday, September 25, 2024 7:30-9:00 AM Abstract Presentations: Best Papers 1. Does an improvement in intraoperative neuromonitoring cord data indicate a reduced risk for postoperative deficit in spine deformity surgery?