I have recently listened to a number of talks given by excellent senior scientists. Their being excellent can be concluded from the prizes they – recently – got and from their – recent -  membership of exclusive societies.

A number of them fall in the trap of feeling the necessity of proving that they are smart and of proving that their field is much more important than the research subjects pursued by their audience.

Let me first put a two simple facts that are often overlooked:

1. Every scientist can always give a much longer presentation than the allotted time
2. Every scientist can give a mathematically sound presentation that nobody in the audience will understand.

So why do these superb scientists keep on saying things like “I could give a whole talk on just this part, but here I will have to limit myself to … “, or when they start, their first sentence is “I could give a much longer talk than the prescribed x minutes? The implication of what they state is: “I am much more important than the other speakers, and I do not understand why I am not invited to talk for hours, you dummies.”

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In an ideal world scientists prepare their conference talk way ahead of time. In a realistic world they prepare their talk one or two days before they get on the plane. Or they do it on the plane. In earlier days,  when a presentation was done with the help of overhead projectors, transparencies that were very clearly made while being in the air were referred to as “air-plane transparencies”. These slides showed all the signs of shaky fingers. In this post I will tell you something about my last-minute preparations for my latest presentation.

Laptop with a screen crash
I used to present my talks using a Dell laptop. Reliable, sturdy and so heavy that additional physical exercises were not necessary. About two  weeks before my conference in Crete would start the unexpected happened: my laptop had a crash, that is to say the screen stopped working and even hooking up an additional monitor did not save me. I only lost about a few hours of work. I always backup my data regularly so this little damage was a reward for my consistent backup procedure.

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My example presentation
When discussing quality of presentations it helps a lot to discuss on the basis of example presentations. An example presentation is exactly what this post is about. Although I do not expect all the readers of this blog to be interested in the content of my talk, it would probably not harm to sketch the context of this speech. About a year ago I gave a 25minute presentation for an audience of about 75 physics PhD students. That day was organized by the Dutch science-supporting agency FOM especially for the students. The program included workshops on presentations, on writing papers and on career planning. I was the last, plenary,  speaker, just before the good-bye drink. My task was to give them a flavor, possibly with some humor, of what it means to pursue an academic career.

Technical aspects
The idea of posting this presentation is to show some technical details:

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I am happy that my book Survival Guide for Scientists, published about a month ago, is selling very well. Today I went through the final proofs of the second edition. Corrections were only minor (some inconsistencies in italic versus roman fonts will be corrected). Up to now the marketing has only been done in the Netherlands. Shortly, our US-publisher will take care of that part of the market.

From the reactions I conclude that my expectation that the book would also be useful for non-scientists, turns out to be more than correct: lawyers, consultants and managers buy the book. And parents buy it for their university-going children. Tell me your opinion about the book.

Or come with suggestions. Klaas Wynne already pointed out that I should pay attention to the presentation quality of posters. Thanks Klaas.

After many years of experience I come to the following conclusion: Giving a good talk for a lay audience is extremely difficult and not very rewarding. Reading this statement will upset a number of people. So I have to do some explaining.

Drowning them
I have seen so many talks delivered by guys (yes usually guys) who want to prove that they are smarter than anybody in the audience. The speaker comes with chaotic – but intimidating – slides, in false colors and with a lot of impressive formula’s. He utters a lot of one-liners that are popular in the media (in the case of physics it is about strings, black holes, time travel, supernova’s, dark matter) The orator speaks fast, to extremely fast. He radiates enthusiasm. There is no chance for the listeners to understand anything, which is exactly the purpose. It is all about intimidation. The speaker gives two or three talks rather than one. He goes way over his time. And the prevailing – for me disappointing – opinion of the audience is: “This guy is extremely smart and very enthusiastic. I wish I was that smart. Great”.

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PowerPoint does not help
I have seen quite some historical developments with respect to visible aids used to clarify oral scientific presentations. I have seen talks illustrated with, slides being projected through a slide projector, transparencies made visible with an overhead projector, and – now – digital slides that come to the audience through a beamer. But with all these modern developments, which certainly seem to look like improvements, a lot of things have not changed for the better. Presenters going way over their time. Showing of bad slides (ugly, busy, unclear, …). Too Much Information (TMI). Much too high level for the audience. Why does this situation continue? My answer: a.o. lack of feedback. (Fig. Uncle Sam)

Lack of feedback
Suppose you do something in the line of your profession and you make mistakes. How to avoid these mistakes? Self-reflection does not help much. Other scientists, that are experienced, or know (better) should tell you. It takes two to tango: you should be receptive to remarks being made about your mistakes. And other people should be willing to point out your shortcomings to you. In practice this feedback mechanism only takes place in a very protected environment.

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In the presentation guide, repeating questions in order to involve the whole audience is said to be a golden rule for which there is no exception. I have no doubt in the importance of repeating questions, but speakers must be careful not to distress themselves and the audience.

In our department, consisting of 6 groups, we have a weekly colloquium. Once or twice a year, each member gets a chance to present a 45-minute talk for the whole department. During the talk the speaker gets as much comments on her presentation skills as she gets scientific questions. As a result, the presentation-skills of the members of our department improve much faster than the other institute-members who do not practice as much.

One of the major training items is of-course repeating the questions. A speaker can be interrupted more than 20 times during his 45 minutes if she intermittently forgets to repeat the questions. After the third or forth warning, sometimes a large banner will be raised by the chairman or another group leader. But, usually the comment is verbal:

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