Speak for Success: Talking About Your Research to a Wide Audience Lisa M. Parcell, Ph.D. Sandy Sipes, M.A. Elliott School of Communication

Agenda Audience Nonverbals The Speech/Pitch Keep Their Attention

Know Your Audience 3

What are you trying to accomplish? Present a poster Present a research paper Win a competition Sell an idea Get a job Always cater your talk to your audience. Have an end goal in mind Frame everything around the end goal

What do THEY want to know? What is your audience most concerned about? Are they interested in significance or results? Emotion Data For general audiences, realize lit review and methods not of first importance. Don’t present info to a general audience in the same way you write a research paper. Lead with significance and results, then ground in literature and methods.

WIIFM What’s In It For Me? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Exercise: Turn to the person sitting next to you. Pretend you are doing a poster session at GRASP. The person sitting next to you is the judge. What would her or she most want to know? Tell your partner. You only get one sentence.

Nonverbals Speak Volumes 7

You cannot NOT communicate Nonverbals are defined by Culture How well you know someone Culture decides how close you stand to someone, how you introduce yourself, what you wear, eye contact, etc. All of that is influenced by your relationship with the speaker. Since your work now is in America, you have to play by our rules. So what does that mean….

First impressions Be excited Dress professionally Wear comfortable shoes and clothing Be clean, especially hands Stand up straight

Introduce yourself Shake hands Make eye contact Introduce yourself

While talking Stand 3 feet or more away Speak clearly and loudly Smile Don’t cross your arms Don’t fiddle with your hair

Know when you’ve lost them They lose eye contact They move away They turn their back to read something Thank them for coming by/listening/allowing you to present, etc.

What Do I Say? 13

Aristotle was right Ethos Pathos Logos Credibility, honesty, authority Emotion, significance, why we should care Logos Logic, facts, results Successful presentations include all of these.

Keep it tight Emphasize significance Tell a story Avoid jargon Keep it short Again, show your enthusiasm

27 – 9 – 3 Elevator pitch 27 words 9 seconds 3 messages Why do we care? Sandy explains this part. Then we stop and do an exercise with the person next to you.

Keep Their Attention 17

Make it visually appealing Use images whenever possible Use color wisely Visualize data Point out all the color and images on the poster.

Back to nonverbals Stand up straight Don’t fidget Don’t read poster or slides Don’t turn your back Sandy teaches them how to present posters without turning your back on audience.

Have fun with it! 20