How to give a good talk - some remarks on preparation and content of a scientific presentation - Abbe School of Photonics Dipl.-Phys. Ulf Zastrau IOQ, X-ray Optics Group november 6th, 20091APS, Zastrau

Contents of my talk Purpose of the talk Organization of a talk How to present a transparency content Time estimation Practise your talk Discussion of the talk Summary november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau2

Purpose of the talk Master Thesis defense: long talk (30-60min), scientific discussion on details, is like an oral examination Seminar talk: medium duration (15-45min), to inform your colleagues about a topic and to show your teacher that you can present results. Conference talk: short (15-30min), general audience, make sure you are very focused and adress everybody in the audience. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau3

Organization Contents Motivation – why is this interesting? Brief introduction into to physics needed Present your results – MAIN PART Summary Thank your colleagues and co-workers november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau4

How to present a tranparency… Headline should give a summary everything should be written in a single language Write everything down and check if the transparency makes sense without a speaker Do NOT read word-by-word the transparency, describe what the audience is supposed to see. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau5

How to present a tranparency… Do speak freely, do NOT use notes.  YOUR NOTE IS THE TRANSPARENCY  if you are afraid of missing an important point, write it down on the transparency. Speak to the audience most of the time. Look at your laptop screen to see the transparency. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau6

Graphs Make sure your axes numbers are large enough (standard size of often to small). november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau7 [Rogers & Iglesias, Science 263,50 (1994); Da Silva et al., PRL 69, 438 (1992)] P 0 (days) P 1 / P OPAL Cox Tabor 6M   5M   4M   5M   6M   7M   Observations Log T(K) Log k R (cm 2 /g) Fe M shell Fe L shell and C, O, Ne K shell H He + H, He Los Alamos, Z = 0.02 OPAL, Z = 0.00 OPAL, Z = 0.02 Ar, Fe K shell

Illustration A picture helps the audience to understand. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau8 Element formation in stars The Big Bang Planetary system formation Forming Earth-like planets Chemistry of life [

Picture of your setup november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau9 Full Aperture Backscatter Diagnostic Instrument Manipulator (DIM) X-ray imager Streaked x-ray detector VISAR Velocity Measurements Static x-ray imager FFLEX Hard x-ray spectrometer Near Backscatter Imager DANTE Soft x-ray temperature Diagnostic Alignment System Cross Timing System Courtesy of R. Body, NIF, USA

Step-by-step presentation Using fade-in, your can… … present your results and graphs… …step by step and thus keep the audience… …focused to the important things. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau10

Time estimation Time for talk = T minutes  T * 2/3 = number of all transparencies. Or: if you have a presentation and want to know how much time is needed: # transparencies * 3/2. 30 min time = max. 20 transparemcies  Take your amount of time small for a discussion! A long talk is boring to the audience. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau11

Practise your talk Practise alone with your laptop, speak loud. Measure the time you need  Transparencies which you have to skip (!) put at the end of the talk for the discussion, do NOT delete them.  Ask friends to listen to your talk AFTER you tried it yourself. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau12

Discussion Before the presentation, thing of possible questions. Prepare slides which illustrate the answer (even off-topic). Try to identify with a member of the audience. Always be very polite, „thank you for your question…“ or „this is indeed a very interesting question. Let me answers it by…“ and explain even stupid questions very detailed… „There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers“. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau13

Summary The summary shold again stress only the outstanding results in a very brief way. It is useless to present too much text here, because nobody will read it at the end of a long presentation. BE QUICK AND PRECISE. Thank you – looking forward to a discussion. november 6th, 2009APS, Zastrau14