Results and Discussion

14.1Tell the audience what they need to know—not everything that you know

Unless describing the methodology is the main purpose of the presentation, the results are usually given in the middle of the presentation. In the middle means in terms of time, not the number of slides. You may in fact be towards the end of your slides, as you will go through the first slides more quickly.

Your findings and results should generally be the highlight of your presentation. The audience just need brief answers to the following questions:

•what did you find?

•was it what you expected?

•what does it mean?

•why should we be interested?

In a 10-minute presentation, this part should be just a couple of slides. It is not advisable to introduce interesting side issues, as they might confuse the audience.

Try to avoid the temptation to give the audience the full Wikipedia explanation. If you present a slide full of information, you yourself know what is important and where to focus your eyes, but the audience doesn’t.

To make it clear that you are generalizing about your results, see Section 13.6.

14.2 Explain statistics, graphs, and charts in a meaningful way

The statistics that you give the audience (whether your own statistics or those of others) will be very familiar to you, so there is a natural tendency to explain them too quickly and in too much detail. The secret is just to select a few and explain them in a way that the audience can understand.

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

and 9.14

14.3Communicate the value of what you have done—put your results in the big picture

For you it may be clear how your results fit in within the current state of the art, but for your audience it may not. Tell the audience how your findings contribute to knowledge in your specific field. Show and tell them the benefits. Use expressions such as

What this means is that . . . The key benefit of this is . . . What I would like you to notice here is . . . What I like about this is . . . Possible applications of this are . . . I would imagine that these results would also be useful for . . .

ADVANCED TIPS

14.4Avoid phrases that might make you sound overconfident or arrogant

When you talk about your results, it is generally a good idea to leave your discussion open to other interpretations. Compare the two versions below:

Note how in the revised version you are not removing the strength of what you are saying. In fact, you gain more credibility if you stress that you are open minded. You show the audience that you are aware that new discoveries are being made all the time and that there may be different ways to achieve the same result.

This means of communication is called “hedging,” and in presentations it should prevent the audience from seeing you as too arrogant or presumptuous.

You can protect yourself from such criticism by not stating things too categorically:

•put would seem to/would appear to before verbs such as prove, demonstrate, give concrete evidence, support (as in the revised example above)

•consider replacing verbs such as prove and demonstrate with less strong verbs such as suggest, imply, and indicate

•hedge strong affirmations using modal verbs (would, might, may, could) for example this could possibly be the reason for . . . this may mean that . . .

•replace adverbs that appear to leave no room for doubt, such as definitely, certainly, surely, undoubtedly, indisputably, with more tentative forms such as probably, possibly, likely or it is probable/possible/likely that . . .

•avoid preceding categorical statements such as “No data exist in the literature on this topic” or “This is the first time that such a result has been achieved.” You can replace such expressions with to the best of our knowledge, as far as I know, I believe, I think.

•be careful not to sound like you want to impose your ideas—the phrase Cellulose should therefore be used is very strong, as in this case there is little difference between should and must (they are both often found in sentences describing obligations)

For more on hedging see companion volume English for Writing Research Papers.

14.5Tell the audience about any problems in interpreting your results

Don’t worry if there is not necessarily one unique or clear way to interpret your results. Again you can use a “hedging” technique, and admit such difficulties:

Interpreting these results is not straightforward primarily because the precise function of XYZ has not yet been clarified.

Although the physiological meaning cannot be confirmed by any direct observation, I believe that . . .

Despite the fact that there appears to be no clear correlation, I think/imagine that . . .

One way of explaining these contrasting results could be . . .

One of the possible interpretations for such discrepancies might be . . . but our future work should be able to clarify this aspect

The results did not confirm our hypothesis, nevertheless I think that . . .

Note how many of the phrases above include modal verbs (might, could, should), adverbs of concession (although, even though, despite the fact, nonetheless, nevertheless), and verbs that express a hypothesis rather than 100% certainty (think, believe, imagine). Such phrases are all useful for making what you are saying sound more tentative.

Also, look at the words in italics in the first three sentences: the subject of the verbs (interpret, confirm, appear) is impersonal, the speaker does not say, for instance, “when I tried to interpret these results.” This allows speakers to distance themselves from their results, to give the impression that the results do not depend strictly on them personally.

14.6 Be positive about others in your field

If you were Jim Smith and heard the original version below, imagine how you would feel.