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The Craft of Scientific Research - Chapter 7: How to give a scientific presentation

Public speaking is a well-developed craft, but for some reason (snobbism?), many researchers I know consider it debasing to put any effort into improving this skill.  I disagree: throughout my book, I insist that scientific research is also effective communication of our findings to our peers.  The best research result may be underappreciated or, worse, misunderstood, if we communicate it poorly.

The chapter starts by stressing how a good talk is always the balancing of three elements: storytelling, factual reporting, and public performance.  Then, we discuss each of the key steps to prepare a talk: pick your story, frame it, develop your stage presence, plan the multimedia, put it all together, and plan your delivery.

As I go through this, I drift into nostalgia and tell the story of how preparing a scientific presentation has changed, moving from analogue projectors to fully digital systems (here, the figure of an analogue slide projector).

Kodak Carousel slide projector (1983). Reproduced from Museuvalenciaetnologia - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. 

I briefly mention the Assertion-Evidence Approach proposed by Michael Alley and discuss timing, noting that, upon delivery, presentations always take longer than in rehearsal. I complete this section by providing advice on stage presence, handling stage fright, etc. 

The last part of the chapter is about attending a conference as a speaker, and why to attend scientific conferences.  

The last section of the chapter is about leveraging your weaknesses; as an example, I use “My invention that made peace with lions”, a talk at TED 2013 given by Richard Turere, at that time a 13-year-old Masai from Kenya.


Enjoy the reading!


Summary of Chapter 7 of “The Craft of Scientific Research”, by Marco Viceconti, self-published and Green Open Access book on the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18069190. 

 

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