Note also how the presenter guides the audience by indicating on the diagram where they are in the process and by explaining technical vocabulary by pointing at the relevant item (the wire cutter, which is this thing here).

13.8 Indicate where you are in a process

Clearly when you are describing a process, such as recycling paper (see example above), you cannot always maintain full eye contact with the audience. You may occasionally need to point at the diagram. You can do this in various ways:

•use a telescopic pointer pen—they range in length from about 500–1000 mm and are relatively inexpensive. You can then stand to the left or right of the screen and use the pointer to indicate the item you are talking about

•use the pointer on PowerPoint (to turn it off, press the A key)

•draw on the screen. To show the pen, press ctrl or cmd + P (to turn it off, press the A key)

It is best to avoid using the laser pointer on the remote as it can be difficult to manipulate.

13.9 Tell a story rather than sounding like a technical manual

You can make a very technical explanation more interesting if you tell it like a story.

If you insist on giving a very technical explanation, keep it as short as possible. Also, give frequent summaries so that the audience can understand how each step is related. You can then say “In other words . . .” and give a simpler summary.

In other types of presentations you may need to explain for example how you chose patients for a clinical trial, how you chose people for a survey, or how you selected specific data from a databank. You can involve your audience much more if you

•talk about the selection process like a story

•use active verbs rather than passive verbs

•exclude nonessential details

128 13 Methodology

Below are two examples. The first example is a medical study involving laser vision correction:

to the Department of Ophthalmology and Neurosurgery. The inclusion criteria covered ages between 20 and 50 years, . . . Patients were not included if any of the following conditions were found to be present: corneal astigmatism =1D, surgical complications

. . .

Note how the revised version leaves out some of the details of the original (Declaration of Helsinki, ethics committee, informed consent, university department name). Although getting the approval of an ethics review committee (ERC) and informed consent from patients are cornerstones in medical research, the audience knows this already and does not need to hear it. It would only be interesting if an ERC had not given approval or if the patients had no idea what the research was about. The name of the university department was probably on the title slide and/or in the conference proceedings and is not relevant here.

This second example is from a survey on Vietnamese students’ ability to write scientific English:

Both of the original versions would be possible in a presentation, but audiences might find the revised versions more interesting because

•the original versions sound like they were lifted directly from a paper. People do not usually talk in such a way. The use of the passive form (except when describing a process, see Section 13.7) is generally a sign of formality and is more often found in writing

•the revised versions make the presenter the protagonist (the main actor), the presenter talks the audience through the decision-making process in a way that makes the presenter seem like a real human being rather than an anonymous provider of information

13.10 Bring your figures, graphs, etc., alive

Constantly think to yourself “Why should the audience be interested in what I am saying?” If you show a figure, bring it alive to the audience. Try and transmit some of that energy you had when you were doing your research and you got your great/unexpected results.

Compare these two versions of a presenter’s commentary of a slide showing a diagram of how a software application (jscope) works.

Note how the revised version

•numbers the three features, thus making it easier for the presenter to list them and easier for the audience to assimilate them

•avoids excessive use of nouns (storage, registration, discovery)

•uses the active rather than the passive

•uses personal pronouns (I, us, we, you)

•cuts words that may be difficult to pronounce (e.g., arbitrarily)

•uses more words than the original, but this is compensated for by its high digestibility factor (seven short sentences versus one long sentence)

For more on describing figures, graphs etc see Sections 9.11, 9.12, 9.13, and

9.14

13.11Minimize or cut the use of equations, formulas, and calculations

Equations, formulas, and calculations are difficult and time consuming to explain. They

•rarely interest the audience and often confuse them

•may distract the audience—they start deciphering the equation and stop listening to you

If you show the formula below on a slide, the temptation for you is to explain each of the symbols. This would take several minutes and by the time you have finished the audience will probably have forgotten what you said at the beginning.

= q1S(s) + σ2T(s)

kV(s)

β3U(s)

Instead of explaining the math in detail, just talk about its importance and how it relates to your study. You can then give details in a handout. For example you could say,

I am not going to explain the details of this formula—you can find them on my website, which I will give to you at the end of the presentation. Basically the formula says that if you want to analyze how easy it is to understand a written sentence, then you shouldn’t just concentrate on how many words are used, but also the stress (S) and the time (T) involved in trying to understand it. So U stands for level of understanding. Using this verbosity index we found that scientific papers are 37 times more difficult to read than advertisements for products.

If you must use math, talk slowly, and go through everything step by step. Remember that people normally study equations on paper; it is not easy for an audience to absorb a formula in a very short space of time.