The document provides a detailed guide for preparing and delivering effective scientific presentations, emphasizing the importance of constructing a coherent narrative before making slides. It outlines key steps including defining a clear thesis statement, considering the audience, and structuring the presentation to engage listeners while conveying essential scientific information. Additionally, it offers practical tips for slide design, content delivery, and practice techniques to ensure a polished final presentation.

1. Assignment title:
Making a Scientific Presentations
Department of Biotechnology University Of Malakand
By: ANSAR KHAN (6th
semester)
Submitted to: Dr. AFTAB ALI SHAH
Date; 20/04/2024
Sources;
Michael Alley
Stanford biologist Susan McConnell
Paperpile.com
Science communication lab

2. Making a Scientific Presentations
A good scientific presentation achieves three things: you
communicate the science clearly, your research leaves a lasting
impression on your audience, and you enhance your reputation as a
scientist.
But, what is the best way to prepare for a scientific presentation?
How do you start writing a talk? What details do you include, and
what do you leave out? It’s tempting to launch into making lots of
slides. But, starting with the slides can mean you neglect the
narrative of your presentation, resulting in an overly detailed, boring
talk.
The key to making an engaging scientific presentation is to prepare
the narrative of your talk before beginning to construct your
presentation slides. Planning your talk will ensure that you tell a
clear, compelling scientific story that will engage the audience. In
this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to make a good
oral scientific presentation, including: The different types of oral
scientific presentations and how they are delivered; How to outline a
scientific presentation; How to make slides for a scientific
presentation.
Scientific presentation outlines.
There are two main types of scientific talks: Your talk focuses on a
1 single study. Typically, you tell the story of a single scientific
paper. This format is common for short talks at contributed sessions
in conferences.

3. Your talk describes 2 multiple studies. You tell the story of
multiple scientific papers. It is crucial to have a theme that unites the
studies, for example, an overarching question or problem statement,
with each study representing specific but different variations of the
same theme. Typically, PhD defenses, invited seminars, lectures, or
talks for a prospective employer (i.e., “job talks”) fall into this
category.
Questions to ask yourself before you write your talk
1. How much time do you have? The length of time you are
allotted for your talk will determine whether you will discuss a
single study or multiple studies, and which details to include in your
story.
2. Who will you speak to? The background and interests of your
audience will determine the narrative direction of your talk, and
what devices you will use to get their attention. Will you be
speaking to people specializing in your field, or will the audience
also contain people from disciplines other than your own? To reach
non-specialists, you will need to discuss the broader implications of
your study outside your field. The needs of the audience will also
determine what technical details you will include, and the language
you will use. For example, an undergraduate audience will have
different needs than an audience of seasoned academics. Students
will require a more comprehensive overview of background
information and explanations of jargon but will need less technical
methodological details. Your goal is to speak to the majority. But,
make your talk accessible to the least knowledgeable person in the
room.
3. What do you want the audience to learn from your talk?

4. This is called the thesis statement, or simply the “take-home
message”. Having listened to your talk, what message do you want
the audience to take away from your presentation? Describe the
main idea in one or two sentences. You want this theme to be
present throughout your presentation. Again, the thesis statement
will depend on the audience and the type of talk you are giving.
Your thesis statement will drive the narrative for your talk. By
deciding the take-home message you want to convince the audience
of as a result of listening to your talk, you decide how the story of
your talk will flow and how you will navigate its twists and turns.
The thesis statement tells you the results you need to show, which
subsequently tells you the methods or studies you need to describe,
which decides the angle you take in your introduction.
How to make a scientific presentation
The goal of your talk is that the audience leaves afterward with a
clear understanding of the key take-away message of your research.
To achieve that goal, you need to tell a coherent, logical story that
conveys your thesis statement throughout the presentation. You can
tell your story through careful preparation of your talk.
Preparation of a scientific presentation involves three separate
stages: outlining the scientific narrative, preparing slides, and
practicing your delivery. Making the slides of your talk without first
planning what you are going to say is inefficient.
Here, we provide a 4 step guide to writing your scientific
presentation:
1 Outline your presentation
2 Plan your presentation slides
3 Make the presentation slides Practice your presentation

5. 4 steps for making a scientific presentation.
Step 1: Outline your presentation Writing an outline helps you
consider the key pieces of your talk and how they fit together from
the beginning, preventing you from forgetting any important details.
It also means you avoid changing the order of your slides multiple
times, saving you time.
Introduction: Writing the introduction can be the hardest part of
writing a talk. And when giving it, it’s the point where you might be
at your most nervous. But preparing a good, concise introduction
will settle your nerves.
 The introduction tells the audience the story of why you
studied your topic. A good introduction succinctly achieves
four things, in the following order.
 It gives a broad perspective on the problem or topic for people
in the audience who may be outside your discipline (i.e., it
explains the big-picture problem motivating your study).
 It describes why you did the study, and why the audience
should care.
 It gives a brief indication of how your study addressed the
problem and provides the necessary background information
that the audience needs to understand your work. It indicates
what the audience will learn from the talk, and prepares them
for what will come next.
 A good introduction not only gives the big picture and
motivations behind your study but also concisely sets the stage
for what the audience will learn from the talk (e.g., the
questions your work answers, and/or the hypotheses that your
work tests). The end of the introduction will lead to a natural
transition to the methods.

6. Give a broad perspective on the problem.
The easiest way to start with the big picture is to think of a hook for
the first slide of your presentation. A hook is an opening that gets
the audience’s attention and gets them interested in your story. In
science, this might take the form of a why, or a how question, or it
could be a statement about a major problem or open question in
your field. Other examples of hooks include quotes, short anecdotes,
or interesting statistics.
Why should the audience care?
Next, decide on the angle you are going to take on your hook that
links to the thesis of your talk. In other words, you need to set the
context, i.e., explain why the audience should care. For example,
you may introduce an observation from nature, a pattern in
experimental data, or a theory that you want to test. The audience
must understand your motivations for the study.
Supplementary details.
Once you have established the hook and angle, you need to include
supplementary details to support them. For example, you might state
your hypothesis. Then go into previous work and the current state of
knowledge. Include citations of these studies. If you need to
introduce some technical methodological details, theory, or jargon,
do it here.
Conclude your introduction.
The motivation for the work and background information should set
the stage for the conclusion of the introduction, where you describe
the goals of your study, and any hypotheses or predictions. Let the
audience know what they are going to learn.

7. Methods:
The audience will use your description of the methods to assess the
approach you took in your study and to decide whether your
findings are credible. Tell the story of your methods in
chronological order. Use visuals to describe your methods as much
as possible. If you have equations, make sure to take the time to
explain them. Decide what methods to include and how you will
show them. You need enough detail so that your audience will
understand what you did and therefore can evaluate your approach,
but avoid including superfluous details that do not support your
main idea. You want to avoid the common mistake of including too
much data, as the audience can read the paper(s) later.
Results: This is the evidence you present for your thesis. The
audience will use the results to evaluate the support for your main
idea. Choose the most important and interesting results—those that
support your thesis. You don’t need to present all the results from
your study (indeed, you most likely won’t have time to present them
all). Break down complex results into digestible pieces, e.g.,
comparisons over multiple slides (more tips in the next section).
Summary:
Summarize your main findings. Displaying your main findings
through visuals can be effective. Emphasize the new contributions
to scientific knowledge that your work makes.
Conclusion:
Complete the circle by relating your conclusions to the big picture
topic in your introduction—and your hook, if possible. It’s
important to describe any alternative explanations for your findings.
You might also speculate on future directions arising from your

8. research. The slides that comprise your conclusion do not need to
state “conclusion”. Rather, the concluding slide title should be a
declarative sentence linking back to the big picture problem and
your main idea.
It’s important to end well by planning a strong closure to your talk,
after which you will thank the audience. Your closing statement
should relate to your thesis, perhaps by stating it differently or
memorably. Avoid ending awkwardly by memorizing your closing
sentence.
Step 2: Plan your presentation slides
By now, you have an outline of the story of your talk, which you
can use to plan your slides. Your slides should complement and
enhance what you will say.
Use the following steps to prepare your slides.
 Write the slide titles to match your talk outline. These should
be clear and informative declarative sentences that succinctly
give the main idea of the slide (e.g., don’t use “Methods” as a
slide title). Have one major idea per slide.
 Decide how you will convey the main idea of the slide (e.g.,
what figures, photographs, equations, statistics, references, or
other elements you will need). The body of the slide should
support the slide’s main idea.
 Under each slide title, outline what you want to say, in bullet
points.
 In sum, for each slide, prepare a title that summarizes its major
idea, a list of visual elements, and a summary of the points you
will make. Ensure each slide connects to your thesis. If it
doesn’t, then you don’t need the slide.

9. Step 3: Make the presentation slides
Slides for scientific presentations have three major components: text
(including labels and legends), graphics, and equations. Here, we
give tips on how to present each of these components.
Slide design
 Have an informative title slide. Include the names of all
coauthors and their affiliations. Include an attractive image
relating to your study.
 Make the foreground content of your slides “pop” by using an
appropriate background. Slides that have white backgrounds
with black text work well for small rooms, whereas slides with
black backgrounds and white text are suitable for large rooms.
 The layout of your slides should be simple. Pay attention to
how and where you lay the visual and text elements on each
slide. It’s tempting to cram information, but you need lots of
empty space. Retain space at the sides and bottom of your
slides.
Text elements
 Use sans serif fonts with a font size of at least 20 for text, and
up to 40 for slide titles. Citations can be in 14 font and should
be included at the bottom of the slide.
 Use bold or italics to emphasize words, not underlines or caps.
Keep these effects to a minimum.
 Use concise text. You don’t need full sentences. Convey the
essence of your message in as few words as possible. Write
down what you’d like to say, and then shorten it for the slide.
Remove unnecessary filler words.

10.  Text blocks should be limited to two lines. This will prevent
you from crowding too much information on the slide. Include
names of technical terms in your talk slides, especially if they
are not familiar to everyone in the audience.
 Proofread your slides. Typos and grammatical errors are
distracting for your audience.
 Include citations for the hypotheses or observations of other
scientists.
Graphics
 Good figures and graphics are essential to sustain audience
interest. Use graphics and photographs to show the experiment
or study system in action and to explain abstract concepts.
 Don’t use figures straight from your paper as they may be too
detailed for your talk, and details like axes may be too small.
Make new versions if necessary. Make them large enough to
be visible from the back of the room.
 Use graphs to show your results, not tables. Tables are difficult
for your audience to digest! If you must present a table, keep it
simple. Label the axes of graphs and indicate the units.
 Label important components of graphics and photographs and
include captions. Include sources for graphics that are not your
own.
 Explain all the elements of a graph. This includes the axes,
what the colors and markers mean, and patterns in the data.
 Use colors in figures and text in a meaningful, not random,
way. For example, contrasting colors can be effective for
pointing out comparisons and/or differences. Don’t use neon
colors or pastels.

11.  Use thick lines in figures, and use color to create contrasts in
the figures you present. Don’t use red/green or red/blue
combinations, as color-blind audience members can’t
distinguish between them.
 Arrows or circles can be effective for drawing attention to key
details in graphs and equations. Add some text annotations
along with them.
 Write your summary and conclusion slides using graphics,
rather than showing a slide with a list of bullet points. Showing
some of your results again can be helpful to remind the
audience of your message.
Equations
If your talk has equations, take time to explain them. Include text
boxes to explain variables and mathematical terms, and put them
under each term in the equation.
Combine equations with a graphic that shows the scientific
principle, or include a diagram of the mathematical model.
Animations and transitions
 Use animations judiciously. They are helpful to reveal complex
ideas gradually, for example, if you need to make a
comparison or contrast or to build a complicated argument or
figure. For lists, reveal one bullet point at a time. New ideas
appearing sequentially will help your audience follow your
logic.
 Slide transitions should be simple. Silly ones distract from
your message.
 Decide how you will make the transition as you move from
one section of your talk to the next. For example, if you spend

12. time talking through details, provide a summary afterward,
especially in a long talk. Another common tactic is to have a
“home slide” that you return to multiple times during the talk
that reinforces your main idea or message.
Step 4: Practice your presentation
 To deliver a polished presentation, it is essential to practice it.
Here are some tips.
 For your first run-through, practice alone. Pay attention to your
narrative. Does your story flow naturally? Do you know how
you will start and end? Are there any awkward transitions? Do
animations help you tell your story? Do your slides help to
convey what you are saying or are they missing components?
 Next, practice in front of your advisor, and/or your peers (e.g.,
your lab group). Ask someone to time your talk. Take note of
their feedback and the questions that they ask you (you might
be asked similar questions during your real talk).
 Edit your talk, taking into account the feedback you’ve
received. Eliminate superfluous slides that don’t contribute to
your takeaway message.
 Practice as many times as needed to memorize the order of
your slides and the key transition points of your talk. However,
don’t try to learn your talk word for word. Instead, memorize
opening and closing statements, and sentences at key junctures
in the presentation. Your presentation should resemble a
serious but spontaneous conversation with the audience.
 Practicing multiple times also helps you hone the delivery of
your talk. While rehearsing, pay attention to your vocal
intonations and speed. Make sure to take pauses while you
speak, and make eye contact with your imaginary audience.

13.  Make sure your talk finishes within the allotted time, and
remember to leave time for questions. Conferences are
particularly strict on run time.
 Anticipate questions and challenges from the audience, and
clarify ambiguities within your slides and/or speech in
response.
 If you anticipate that you could be asked questions about
details but you don’t have time to include them, or they detract
from the main message of your talk, you can prepare slides that
address these questions and place them after the final slide of
your talk.
Final thoughts
An organized presentation with a clear narrative will help you
communicate your ideas effectively, which is essential for engaging
your audience and conveying the importance of your work. Taking
time to plan and outline your scientific presentation before writing
the slides will help you manage your nerves and feel more confident
during the presentation, which will improve your overall
performance.