Presenting Your Research: Conferences, Symposiums, Poster Presentations and Beyond by Lucinda Becker

Author:Lucinda Becker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473904224
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Timing

Using presentation aids takes a surprisingly long time – far longer than you might expect. You will have noticed, probably with exasperation, when a speaker at an event you have attended has rushed through a slide, not giving you enough time to read and understand it. You are unlikely to have noticed (why would you?) the length of time another speaker has had to stand by, patiently waiting whilst the audience absorbs the information before moving on to the next part of a talk. In the later chapter on delivering your material this will be explored in more detail, but for now I would like to suggest that you always plan, rehearse and revise your material taking into account the fact that you will lose speaking time with each presentation aid you offer. This is generally a good thing, given that many of your audience members will assimilate information visually more readily than aurally, but it does need to be taken into consideration at every stage of your preparation.

Timing will also have a direct effect on the number and type of presentation aids you use. If you want to include, for example, a data projector slide show and a demonstration and a handout to which you will be referring, this will obviously take longer than using just one aid to illustrate the material. Equally, if your slides are very complicated they will take up more time. If in rehearsal you are running over on time, avoid the ready solution of simply speeding up your talking pace; instead simplify the material on your slides or reduce the number of slides. If you know that you will not need to refer to slides for a few minutes during the presentation, consider including a blank slide so that the audience is not left looking at an old slide; you might also think of including a ‘hidden’ slide which would be used only if you need to add material at the last minute.

TOP TIP

No audience member is happy to see a slide or two whizz by as you click forward because you are running over on time. This is especially true if you explain, as you gallop through, that you would have loved to share this material but you have no time to do it. If you feel, after a few rehearsals, that the timing of the presentation cannot be predicted with any accuracy (perhaps the material you are sharing is complicated or will be entirely new to the audience and so will need more or less explaining depending on its reaction on the day), then include a few slides which could be condensed into no more than a few words or expanded to fill several minutes productively; that way nobody knows that they have missed anything and you are never at a loss for useful visual material.

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