The Craft of Scientific Presentations Archives, Cal-Tech Linus Pauling [Pauling’s] talk was the best talk by any- one on any subject that I had ever heard. Isaac Asimov

Because presentations are expensive, one should consider whether a presentation is truly needed Cost in salaries of audience Cost in time for presentation Cost in time to prepare presentation

Presenter can read audience and react A B C C D Presenter receives instant reaction ! ? ! ? Presentations have several advantages over documents Work can come alive for audience Work

Speaker has limited chance to catch errors ??? Audience cannot reread text has one audience chance to hear Audience cannot look up background material Presentations also have several disadvantages

Presentations can be viewed from three stylistic perspectives Structure and Speech Delivery Archives, Cal-Tech Visual Aids

One perspective on presentations is that of structure and speech Structure and Speech Visual Aids Delivery Archives, Cal-Tech

audience purposeoccasion You begin preparing a scientific presentation by analyzing your constraints who are they? what do they know? why are they here? what biases do they have? to inform to persuade to inspire to teach formality size time

BeginningBeginning EndingEnding Middle As with documents, the structure of presentations should have clear beginnings, middles, and ends

Beginnings prepare the audience for the work to be presented Defines work Work = A + B Maps presentation A B C D Shows importance Gives background

The middle presents the work in a logical order post-combustion methods combustion methods pre-combustion methods

pre-combustion methods combustion methods post-combustion methods combustion methods In the middle, you make smooth transitions between major points

The ending summarizes main points and places those results in the context of the big picture point 1 point 2 point 3 point 4 point 5 point 6 point 7 point 8 point 1 point 7 Summary Big Picture