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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In my book Survival Guide for Scientists I give very precise advise on how, in my opinion, one can improve a scientific presentation. For educational purposes examples of really bad presentations and examples of really excellent presentations can be a very useful complimentary instruction material. When I asked some of my colleagues to allow me to criticize (positively or negatively) a recent presentation of them, they all ducked.

Some time ago I listened to a presentation in the USA by Femius Koenderink, a junior colleague group leader of our institute. I was impressed by his talk and his slides (and I am known to be critical). I asked Femius if I could use his presentation on our web site as an example of a good presentation. And under the condition that I could comment all slides one by one. Femius is a good sport, so he immediately agreed, which please me a lot. I will not supply the PowerPoint file, for a number of reasons, but I will supply a pdf version. The pdf version has the slides and the comments. Please download and enjoy. And criticize me (or Femius).

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