How to make good presentation.pdf

How to make a good presentation
Myriads team seminar
Guillaume Pierre
How to make a good presentation 1 / 43

The killer slide
Columbia Shuttle Disaster (2003) was partly due to one bad slide
I 7 people died

What happened?
When taking o, some debris was seen to hit one of the wings
Question: did it damage the wing? Is it safe to re-enter atmosphere?
Study was conducted through mathematical analysis only, based on
test data completely out of range (the actual debris was 640 times
bigger than in the test data)
Results looked reassuring but Boeing's engineers were concerned
by the limits of their evaluations
NASA management only understood the reassuring part. . .
The shuttle was allowed to re-enter atmosphere without repairing the
wing

The killer slide

11 sentences, 6 levels of hierarchy

Overly reassuring title
Review of test data does not refer to the predicted tile damage but
to the choice of test models used to predict the damage
Remember: this is a mathematical analysis based on very limited
data

Jargon
SOFI = Spray On Foam Insulation

Incomprehensible sentence
You'd better pay attention to the presenter's speech. . .
But the presentation was also circulated by email

Unclear reference: what is it?
Here: it = damage to the protective tiles
If you miss this, the meaning changes completely

What does signicant mean?
Here: it means bad
One may interpret this as statistically signicant (i.e., good)

Weird, inconsistent unit notations
3cu. In vs 1920cu in vs 3 cu in
Clear version: 1920 in3

The important message is hidden at the end of the slide
And it contradicts the title. . .

An alternative design of the same slide

Another design of the same slide

Table of Contents
1 What makes a good presentation?
2 Presentation structure
3 Visual Stu
4 Delivering the presentation
5 A few tips for the Myriads seminars
How to make a good presentation What makes a good presentation? 15 / 43

The fundamental nature of scientic discourse is not the mere
presentation of information and thought, but rather its actual
communication. It does not matter how pleased an author might
be to have converted all the right data into sentences and
paragraphs; it matters only whether a large majority of the
reading audience accurately perceives what the author has in
mind.
George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan, The Science of
Scientic Writing.

What makes a good presentation?
You fully understand the content you are presenting (not so obvious!)
You present this content is a synthetic way
You avoid a number of classical pitfalls
Most dicult part: being synthetic!
The three keywords are: structure, structure, structure.

Observation
A presentation at a conference is usually limited to 20 minutes
The paper you come to present is about 10-15 pages long
I You already had to ght to make everything t within these limits
Axiom
It is impossible to explain everything within these 20 minutes!
Even if you speak very fast. . .
You will have to select only what is important and skip all the rest

Two minutes per slide
In general, plan to spend about 2 minutes per slide
I Some slides take a bit less, but not that much
A conference-style presentation will contain roughly 1012 slides
Each slide will contain 1012 lines at most
I Some authors make stricter recommendations: 6 lines, 6 words/line
I But beware of messages that are so compressed that they become
incomprehensible

Focus only on what's important
What is important in a technical presentation?
I Most important: what is the problem you are trying to solve?
I And also: a glimpse at your solution
I All the rest does not matter! (almost. . . )
People can always read the paper afterwards
I You can skip entire aspects of your work
I Just mention them: you will nd more information in the paper

Avoid complicated abstractions
In a paper you present your work in the most general case
I You end up writing text at a high level of abstraction
In a presentation, make things concrete
I No need to present the full generality and all the 73 special cases
discussed in the paper
I Do not copy-paste this impressive 5-lines-long math formula from the
paper!
I Present only the normal/interesting case
I Maybe: present just one running example that illustrates your message

Create slides that make sense on their own

Table of Contents
3 Visual Stu
How to make a good presentation Presentation structure 23 / 43

General presentation structure
1 Title
2 Problem
3 First glance at the solution
4 Structure of the talk
5 . . .
6 . . .
7 . . .
8 Conclusion
9 Take-home message

The right content of slide 2
The rst slide is easy: title, author name, logo of the organization,
etc.
What about the second slide?
I Most people present the structure of their talk. WRONG!
I The audience has barely read your title, and has no idea what the talk
is about
F I will rst introduce the problem, then show my solution, then there
will be some performance evaluation, and then I will conclude. The
same applies to every presentation!
F I will introduce isomorphic para-spaces. Then I will show that the
Chandy-Lamport theorem proves the non-linar nature of that space,
thanks to the use of results on supersingular elliptic curve isogeny
cryptography. Nobody understands anything!

The right content of the rst slides
Better start with the problem (slide 2)
I What is the problem you are trying to solve?
I Why should the audience pay attention to your presentation
instead of cheking their email?
I Make the problem extremely concrete (e.g., Columbia shuttle disaster)
Then give a hint of what the solution looks like (slide 3)
I Just enough so that the audience can start guessing what your talk is
going to contain
Then the structure of the talk (slide 4)
I They will now understand why you want to apply XXX's theorem, and
what it was about in the rst place
Isn't this a familiar structure?
This is a stripped-down version of the structure of a paper introduction

The last slide
After your presentation the audience will ask questions
I The last slide of your presentation will remain displayed for several
minutes
I How useful is it to display Any question? during 10 minutes?
Use the last slide to repeat the take-home message
I If I remember only one idea from your presentation, what should this
idea be?
Example: what is the take-home message of this presentation?
When preparing a presentation,
focus on the essential message
and skip all the rest

Backup slides
You can often anticipate the questions that the audience may ask
I Elements that you decided to skip in your presentation
I Questions asked by the reviewers of your paper
I Questions asked by audiences in a previous presentation
Prepare 1 slide to answer each such question!
I Performance graphs
I State of the art
I Tricky/controversial aspects of your work
Show your backup slides only if the audience asks the questions you
prepared
I And take a note of the questions you receive so that you can prepare
backup slides for the next time. . .

Table of Contents
3 Visual Stu
How to make a good presentation Visual Stu 29 / 43

Font size
Use large enough fonts! No more than 12 lines of text per slide
I Print one slide in A4 format (the one with the smallest fonts)
I Put the slide on the oor, take one step back
I You should be able to read everything easily!
Note: the same holds for gure legends etc.
I What's the point including them if the audience cannot read?

Short sentences only!

Beamers have real bad contrast
A typical LCD screen has a contrast of 2000/1, while a typical
beamer has a contrast of 500/1 (in perfect conditions)
I With background light you get maybe a contrast of 100/1 or 50/1
I Your gure with 5 dierent shades of purple looks nice on screen but
nobody will see anything using a beamer!
Use only strong high-contrast colors (black, blue, red, brown)
I Avoid lighter colors: yellow, pink, green
I Do not mix red with green: 7-10% of male population is colorblind!
I Beware of background colors: white works best

Contrast

Avoid jokes and funny cartoons
Your only goal is to convey as much information as possible during a
short period of time
I Remember? You had to strip your presentation to the strictly essential
message
I Every written/spoken word counts
Do not distract the audience with funny cartoons and jokes!
I All the time that people read the cartoon they don't listen to you, and
lose track of the presentation
I It also conveys a negative message: I know that this presentation is
totally boring. I hate it myself as well. Instead, let me try to entertain
you during this painful moment.
Similarly: sophisticated slide transitions distract the audience,
especially if you use dierent ones each time
I What will the next transition be?
I Reserve these eects to emphasize one important message per
presentation

Table of Contents
3 Visual Stu
How to make a good presentation Delivering the presentation 35 / 43

Delivering the presentation
Watch the audience
I Do not watch the screen nor your laptop
Speak loudly enough so the audience can hear you
I Trick: select somebody at the last row and talk to that person
Give the audience enough time to think before you change topics
I Just stay silent for 5 seconds before moving on to something else
Do not read your slides aloud
I What's the point? The audience can read your slides
I Make new sentences during the presentation
Emphasize what's important
I Do not use monotonic voice!
Do not play strip-tease with your slides. . .
I You can't be trusted to listen to me if I show you the next line too

Know your presentation by heart!
You should know by heart which slide contains what information
I . . . and in which order
I You should never get lost!
I What was already discussed, what will come next
But do not learn the text of your speech by heart!
I ⇒ Mechanical delivery
I Better to make new sentences on the spot

Practice your talk
Practice your talk beforehand!
I If possible with a couple of friends to listen to you
I Did they understand what the take-home message is?
I Did you emphasize what is important?
I Is your talk well structured?
Beware of time limits
I If your talk is too long, speaking faster will not help
F You will have to cut on the content
I If you run overtime during the real presentation:
F Skip slides, focus on the most important stu
F In extreme cases: skip everything, move directly to conclusion

Table of Contents
3 Visual Stu
How to make a good presentation A few tips for the Myriads seminars 39 / 43

Special tips for the Myriads seminars
State-of-the-art presentations must discuss several papers,
not one!
You have 20-25 minutes for the presentation (excluding questions)
You must give one synthetic presentation, not 10 small ones!
Tip #1: Spend enough time in Introduction
The introduction is extremely important
I What is the presentation about? What is the problem we are going to
address?
I Why is this an interesting topic?
I Understand the problem better (without telling about solutions)
I Which structure does your presentation follow?
Plan to spend 25-30% of your time in introduction

Special tips for the Myriads seminars
Tip #2: Select your papers carefully
Your presentation must tell a single story
I Oppose and contrast multiple approaches to the same problem
I Present complementary techniques that address dierent aspects of
the same problem
I Show techniques which improve on each other
I Etc.

Special tips for the Myriads seminar
Tip #3: Think carefully about the structure of your presentation
Structure, structure, structure
Let the audience know how the dierent papers t together
Possible structures:
I Simple: Intro, paper 1, paper 2, paper 3, conclusion.
F Explain how these three papers relate to each other
F In which order will you present the three papers?
I More sophisticated: synthetic presentation
F Structure like a lecture: cover dierent aspects of the problem in a
logical order
F Use information from each paper where it ts
I If you oppose three approaches to the same problem: present/oppose
all papers simultaneously
Be creative!

References
Eective oral presentations, Jean-Luc Doumont.
http://www.treesmapsandtheorems.com/pdfs/TMTh-3.0-summary.pdf

How to make good presentation.pdf

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