Bad talks are inflicted upon us all too often at seminars and conferences. You get up early in the morning, feel an excitement about the day’s talks, walk into the room upbeat, and are frustrated by an unprepared, incoherent, and boring lecture.
One essential part of research that is often marginalized is the importance of communicating your findings. It is easy to think of it as an afterthought, something incidental. Some might even think the research is the only scintillating part, and don’t even rank giving a good talk on their priority list. I strongly disagree.
Above all, the ultimate goal of research is to make discoveries and contribute to the body of human knowledge. To wit, it is necessary to communicate your discoveries well so they are understood and remembered, otherwise your research will be lost in the exponentially growing sea of papers. Second, effective and attractive communication demonstrates professionalism; advantageous to your career. Third and most viscerally, your audience is giving you a precious gift: thirty minutes of their life. If you waste it, they will be infuriated (unless, perhaps, they took a nap rather than listen to you).
I don’t claim to be a veteran in academia, but as a (fifth-year) PhD student, I have heard my share of bad talks, received advice from my advisor and colleagues, and given talks of my own. These experiences have revealed common pitfalls in presenting to the public. Here I try to summarize what I have learned in graduate school. If you find it useful, good. If you find it cliche, great!
Pitfall #1: Not knowing your audience
Giving a talk means that you want people to listen to you. If you want people to listen to you, you need to know what they want to hear. On one side, scientists working in your area want to know the meaning of every parameter in your equation and the significance of every statistical test. Apart them, the general public want to hear your exciting story behind the research and a clear message they can share with family and friends. Between the two ends of the spectrum, there is a diverse continuum of audiences. When presenting to your peers, glossing over critical technical details will tarnish your presentation retaliation will be swift, with angry or sarcastic questions. However, if you talk about how to find the optimal temperature decrease strategy in simulated annealing to a group of six-graders, you are woefully mistaken.
Countermeasure: Tailor your story for the audience, tuning the amount of detail appropriately.
Pitfall #2: Not being prepared
While falling into the above pit may color you as being aloof, this one can make you seem flat-out unprofessional or the conference fool. Data is scarce, but I would bet 50% of conference presenters practice their talk no more than once. Even more probably don’t practice in front of people. The reasons for not preparing are numerous and varied, ranging from laziness and apathy about the talk to overconfidence and ignorance of the difficulty presenting one’s work can pose.
Two minutes into the presentation, the ill-prepared presenter will be hurtling into this abyss, screaming as much through body language, “uh’s” and “um’s”, all the way until they finish—well past the allotted time. “Amateur!” cry silently the audience, and their principle take-away from the talk is that you’re an idiot, regardless of how amazing your research and data is.
Countermeasure: Not everyone was born a good speaker, but practicing can make you a good one. Practice to yourself, recording then listening. Then, practice to your friends and colleagues, taking their feedback graciously and to heart.
Pitfall #3: Not having a story
People love stories. They hate bland pedantic statements. When presenting, bear in mind you are bombarding the audience with dozens of new facts and ideas, which can outwardly seem disjoint and otherwise hard to digest. You need a container to organize these ideas and facts: a story woven into a narrative. If you begin your talk with sterile data or concepts divorced from all other meaning, your audience may wonder “why do I care?”, and if you fail to answer that question promptly they will be lost to their smartphones.
Countermeasure: Give your audience a reason to listen, and begin by telling them why your research is interesting—curiosity is a mighty ally in keeping your audience engaged. Then talk about the scientific question you want to answer, and only then about what you did and your findings.