Click to edit Master title style Technical Presentations Randy Beard & David Long Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Brigham Young University

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Outline  Planning the presentation  General principles  Slides  Making the presentation

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Planning the presentation  What is your purpose?  Get money  Explain an idea  Persuade someone to your point of view  Key: know your audience  Tune presentation for your audience!  This is the single most critical point  Length of the presentation

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Outline  Planning the presentation  General principles  Slides  Making the presentation

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class General Principles  Place Yourself In Your Audience's Position  The audience wants to learn something.  Be sure you give them a take-away message  Don’t assume they will figure it out themselves  Give a talk that is related to the title.  Discuss the general principles and context quickly and move to what is unique about your work.  Establish a frame of reference for the audience,  Treat the subject broadly enough to encompass the range of interests of potential attendees.

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class General principles (cont.)  Relate your work to the work of others  Explain your work in relation to the work of others  Since the authors of work you cite could be in the audience, drop lots of names and always be complementary -- don’t be negative  Presentations are only summaries  Your presentations may summarize months or years of work  You cannot discuss everything  Summarize the main points

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class General Principles (cont.)  Allocate the time spent on each topic in direct proportion to its importance  Qualitative insights are more important than quantitative results  Your audience's interest level will be highest at the beginning and the end of your presentation – put key points there  A GOOD INTRODUCTION AND A GOOD SUMMARY OR CONCLUSIONS ARE ESSENTIAL  “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them.”

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class General Principles (cont.)  Use Your Slides To Visually Reinforce Your Spoken Words  Have A Good Reason For Showing Each And Every Slide You Use  Space Your Slides Evenly Over Time  Slides Must Be Readable. Don't Flout The Laws Of Optics

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Outline  Planning the presentation  General principles  Slides  Making the presentation

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Preparing good slides  The quality of your slides make a statement about who you are  Make sure that they look nice and are well organized  Keep your slides simple:  Simplify texts, charts, and concepts  Break up complex charts and graphs into simpler ones  Keep visual effects to a minimum. The focus should be on the concepts and not on the presentation style. Be cautious with animations.  Make slides readable: use large font, and only a few bullets

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Preparing good slides (cont.)  Communicate the key ideas  Spend time figuring out what the key ideas are and how to communicate them.  Don’t get bogged down in the details!  Usually you don’t present the proofs of theorems, etc., in a talk – give the big picture  When you must do a proof, only sketch it.  Only outline an algorithm.  Describe “what it all means” in simple terms

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Structure of a technical talk  Introduction  Define the problem  Motivate the audience  Discuss earlier work  Emphasize contributions of your work  Introduce terminology and notation  Provide a road map of the talk

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Structure of a technical talk (cont.)  The body  Abstract the major results  Explain significance of the results  Sketch proofs of major results  Technicalities  Present a key lemma or results  This is primarily for the experts in the audience and to communicate that there is actually something under the hood.

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Structure of a technical talk (cont.)  The Conclusion  Make observations that would have been confusing if they were introduced earlier.  Retell your story and weave all previous slides into a coherent synopsis.  Emphasize the main take home message.  Acknowledge co-workers.

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Outline  Planning the presentation  General principles  Slides  Making the presentation

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Making the Presentation  Prepare, prepare, prepare (know your slides)  Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse  Dress appropriately  It is better to overdress than to under dress  Talk to the audience and not to your slides  Face the audience, but  Point to the slides  Speak clearly and slowly, enunciate your words

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Making the Presentation (cont.)  Make professional looking slides  Check them carefully for typos and spelling errors  Don’t just read your slides  Use your slides as a presentation aid, and not as a self contained presentation  Maintain eye contact  Don’t make excuses  “I forgot to prepare my talk”  “I apologize that you can’t read this data…”  These demean your audience

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Show time  When you are making a presentation you are putting on a show and you have an obligation to make it interesting  Keep it simple, don’t bury audience in detail  Emphasize the forest, not the trees  Organize talk into sections, each with a main point.  Emphasize main point at beginning and end of section  Constantly try to regain your audience’s attention  Occasionally use personal stories and anecdotes to emphasize main points.

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Question time  Be sure to leave time for questions.  A good rule of thumb is to end 5 minutes early.  Three types of questions: 1. Genuine request for knowledge:  These are the easiest to answer (and the type of question that you should ask!) 2. Selfish question, where the questioner is trying to draw attention to themselves.  Be polite and try to find a way to complement the questioner.  e.g., that is a good question… 3. Malicious questioner that tries to discredit work.  Questioner is usually insecure  It is usually best to suggest that you discuss these questions with the questioner off-line

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Distracting Mannerisms  Walking around a lot  Toying with keys in your pocket  Talking to the slide with your back to the audience  Avoiding eye contact, looking above the audience  Too much pointing (it takes attention away from the message)

Technical PresentationsECEn Graduate Writing Class Acknowledgements The following material was used to prepare these slides: Kim Fowler, Giving Good Technical Presentations, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine, March 2000, p Tips for Building and Giving Technical Presentations, Michael Ernst, Giving a Technical presentation,