What did you say? So what?

Today I have had the rare pleasure of attending two good talks here at the MRS Fall Meeting. One of them was actually given by one of my colleagues at the Institute for Energy Technology, Sabrina Sartori. Even though I had no prior knowledge to her research field, I was able to understand the basic message of her talk, which is quite extraordinary when it comes to oral presentations of scientific work.

Yesterday morning I attended a pre-breakfast session on how to communicate scientific work, which I found very interesting. The ability to communicate results is something that comes with practice, but the most important thing is to be aware of the challenge, and try to make the very best out of it. The practical rules of how to give a good presentation can be summarized as follows:

1. Stand still
When you are under pressure, you tend to run around a little bit. This can be confusing (or amusing) to the public, so if you have someting important to say, you should avoid it. It makes me think about a Japanese I once witnessed falling down from the stage during his presentation on a solar cell conference. Poor guy.

2. Face the audience and make eye contact
It is not very motivating to attend a lecture where the lecturer joins the public and stares at his own slides during the whole presentation.

3. Speak slowly
It is common to see that people who try to take the most advantage of their 12 minutes they have for presentation, speaks extremely fast. This could also be the result of nervousness. Remember to breathe, and talk as though you were trying to explain your results to your 90-year old grandfather.

4. Practice beforehand
And speak out loud when you practice!

5. Know your public

Most people should be somewhere on the "what?"-"so what?" curve. While a PhD supervisor is very interested in knowing what you have done and not so much in knowing why you are doing this, you might have to lay somewhat more emphasis on the so what when you are talking to a broader public as your collegues or friends. A good rule for a mixed public is to go a little bit more on the so what than what you really think is necessary. You should also follow the wine glass shape:

And last, but not least: Do not use a laser pointer!