How to present your paper Module 7 How to present your paper

Preparing a Professional Scientific Presentation What’s inside Preparing a Professional Scientific Presentation How to present a paper (The WHPI approach)

A scientific paper consists of: The Whole Ideas A scientific paper consists of: Stage 1 - Thinking About It Stage 2 - Preparing the Proposal Stage 3- Conducting the Research Stage 4- Writing the Research Paper* Stage 5- Sharing the Research Outcomes with Others Stage 6- Revising the Research Paper

PREPARING THE PROPOSAL PRESENTATION Do each of these statements describe you? If they do, you're ready to prepare your research proposal presentation I am familiar with other research that has been conducted in areas related to my research project. (___Yes, it's me) ( ___No, not me) 2. I have a clear understanding of the steps that I will use in conducting my research.

PREPARING THE PROPOSAL PRESENTATION 3. I feel that I have the ability to get through each of the steps necessary to complete my research project. (___Yes, it's me) ( ___No, not me) 4. I know that I am motivated and have the drive to get through all of the steps in the research project.

Why?, How, Prove it! There are several advantages to the Why? How? Prove It! method: Your talk starts and ends with a key message, leaving your audience in no doubt as to what you said - you've grabbed their attention Writing your talk is easy as you only have to provide a few details and then add some examples to prove your point Remembering your talk is easy as it is constructed logically -plus if you forget where you are just reflect on what you have said and work out which is the next phase in the sequence. Your talk follows the apparent logic of the audience making it much more influential and persuasive

Why?, How, Prove it! Key message Your presentation MUST have a key message. Leave your audience in absolutely no doubt what you came to tell them. Don't lead them up to your messages - they won't stay the course. Hit them between the eyes with your message right up front. You should provide your key message within the first 15 seconds of starting your talk. Research shows that if you don't do this you risk losing the attention of your audience.

Why?, How, Prove it! Poorly prepared key messages are frequently the problem that lies behind badly written talks and speeches. Your key message should contain: The main action or change in behavior you want your audience to take as a result of listening to you Reference to the audience Reference to an example that you'll elaborate on

Why?, How, Prove it! This message should say: WHO it is for - WHAT they will do - WHY they will do it – WHEN they will do it - This message should be concise, which means you can say it in just few seconds. Indeed, if no-one wishes to listen to you after those opening 20 seconds they will still have understood what you have come to tell them. The remainder of your talk would just be the detail - but your message will have hit home without it. Having said that, a good key message with a 'call to action' means that your audience will be hungry for more, so they will carry on listening.

Why? Why? Having provided your audience with your key message they will inevitably be asking themselves: 'Why should I do that?' or 'Why should I think that?' or 'Why should that be the case?' In any event, all the questions that follow from an action-oriented key message are of the 'why?' kind. That means if the next stage of your presentation sets about answering these questions your talk is following what the audience perceives as its route through the material. The result is that you have them on your side immediately. If your talk follows the audience logic by immediately answering the 'why' style questions you will be providing just what the listeners want, mentally. As a result, you will make your material MUCH MORE LIKELY to be accepted and acted upon. Having constructed your key message you simply have to think of all the reasons why your audience should accept what you are saying or act upon your material. These reasons and the detail behind them will form the first main section of your presentation

How? How? So, your audience now knows what you expect them to do and why they should do it. Now you need to answer their next inevitable question - how are they going to achieve what you suggest? In this section of your talk you need to provide some explanation of how your audience can take the action you suggest or how they might go about changing their minds on a situation. However, this is the least important part of your presentation. You are merely giving ideas at this stage. Once people have bought into your idea by understanding why your key message is important, the 'how?' they might do what you suggest is nice to know, but not need to know material. Hence, the 'how?' may only be a couple of sentences of suggestions, nothing very detailed.

How? Having said that, 'how' is an important part of the presentation as it necessarily follows the logical set of questions being asked subconsciously by the audience. Hence to leave it out disturbs the natural logic in the audience's mind and you lose support, reducing your influence. But don't waste too much breath on it. Your audience simply needs to check that 'how? has been answered. Quite how they achieve tour desires will be up to them after your presentation - you are just providing some guidance.

Prove It! Prove It! So, you've told your audience what you expect them to do, why they should do it and how they can get on with things. But even though you may have got your message across, you haven't really underlined it as yet. You need to provide evidence for your assertions - prove what you have said is beyond dispute. The 'prove it' section of your talk is the most important part you need to write, after the key message. So spend lots of time in planning this. You can prove your key message in several ways, but the main evidence will come from: Personal examples Case studies Statistics

Prove It! Individual, personal examples are immensely powerful - especially if you tell them as stories. Case studies are in depth examples and can be useful, but they are more difficult to tell as stories. Statistics are useful to help prove a point, but they do not carry as much weight as examples and case histories. That's because people know that you can massage the statistics in your favour, so they put less trust in them.