After months of running experiments, pouring over data late into the evening, and surviving on whatever snacks drift within arm’s reach, you’re about to present your research for the first time. You’ve memorized every detail, but the thought of facing a live audience still makes your palms sweaty and your knees shake.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Plenty of researchers would rather be knee-deep in experimental troubleshooting than face the unpredictability of a Q&A. In the lab, you know how to gear up when handling formaldehyde or BL-2 samples—if only there was PPE for the pointed questions from that one professor in the front row!
All jokes aside, whether you’re preparing your first presentation for a departmental seminar or giving a research talk at a conference, the prospect can be a daunting one. But with the right preparation, you can turn your hard-earned findings into a compelling narrative. Many CST scientists regularly present at conferences, so we sat down with a couple to get practical advice on everything from preparing slides to managing anxiety.
Step One: Understand Your Audience and Tailor Your Narrative
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Richard Cho, PhD |
Before you start, take a step back and think about who will be listening to your presentation. “Consider your audience before you make any slides—or even write your presentation title,” advises Richard Cho, PhD, Associate Director of Neuroscience at CST. “After you’ve spent so much time on a topic, it’s easy to forget that what’s second nature to you might be completely new to your audience and could require a quick introduction.”
This may involve adapting field-specific jargon or adding slides to explain unfamiliar concepts. For example, the presentation you’d prepare for a smaller, departmental seminar or a focused conference in your sub-field may look very different than what you would put together for a large international event.
Understanding your audience’s familiarity with your topic, along with their background, interests, and level of technical knowledge, will help you tailor your message so that it’s relevant and easily digestible.
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Slides serve as visual aids to support and enhance your verbal presentation. A well-crafted slide distills your content into key points and provides your audience with attention-grabbing visuals. “Use as few words as possible in your slides,” recommends Virginia (Ginny) Bain, PhD, Group Leader of Immunofluorescence at CST. “Images and graphs are easier for an audience to digest than text-heavy slides. Then, when you do include words, they will be more impactful.”
When designing slides, consider the size of the presentation space and ensure images are large enough to be seen by all audience members. A common stumbling block is trying to cram too much data onto a single slide.
“I’ve found nothing turns off an audience faster than feeling like they need to break out a magnifying glass to understand what they're looking at,” says Ginny. “Likewise, if you can, practice with the projector you’ll use during your talk to make sure it displays colors accurately—especially reds. Sometimes, you must add contrast to your images to ensure features aren’t lost.”
Finally, choose fonts and colors that make sense and carry the same elements throughout all slides. “Many organizations have slide templates that presenters can use,” adds Richard. “It’s worth asking if such a resource exists before you get too far along in assembling your presentation.”
The benefits of a well-crafted presentation are two-fold; first, it can act as a cue card to jog your memory as you are speaking, and second, the audience can glance at your slide if they fail to immediately catch your meaning. However, avoid the trap of simply reading full sentences or paragraphs directly from your slides. This is a surefire way to lose your audience, as they could simply read the information themselves.
In addition to producing slides that guide listeners through your talk, there are several techniques for keeping an audience captivated.
People think in stories, so one key to giving a great research talk is to tell a compelling story with your data.
“Before I start making slides, I like to come up with an overarching narrative in my head,” explains Ginny. “Of course, it always sounds amazing when I’m thinking about it, and then I write it down and realize where the holes are. However, this exercise helps me think through the whole story to identify areas that need improvement.”
It can be helpful to reflect on what excited you most about your research when you first started. What problem could your research ultimately help to solve? Why is it important? Weaving your research findings into the bigger picture can help capture your audience’s attention and make your presentation more memorable.
“One pitfall I’ve seen early researchers fall for is a desire to share their findings in sequential order. Instead, it may make more sense to organize findings in a way that illustrates a story for your audience,” explains Ginny. “As I’m crafting my narrative, I organize my data in order in a PowerPoint or on a whiteboard to help identify the bigger picture before I decide what I want to show and when.”
Storytelling provides context for your research, making complex concepts more accessible and understandable to a diverse audience.
As you weave your research into a story, consider how it might challenge the audience's expectations and whether you can use the element of surprise as a hook.
“In any good story, you’re going to have surprises,” explains Richard. “Surprises can be unexpected findings, counterintuitive results, or intriguing anecdotes that challenge conventional wisdom.” If there’s a way to do so, including surprises in your presentation can add intrigue and excitement to your talk and can spark lively discussion and debate.
“One tactic I’ve seen used successfully is to pose a question near the start of your presentation and imply to the audience that the answer might surprise them—but don’t give them the answer right away,” says Richard. “Then, later in the presentation, circle back to that question.”
Step Four: Practice, Practice, Practice
To enhance your presentation skills, it's essential to embrace practice as a critical component of preparation. Before you start, consider the format of the event and your time allotment and tailor the length of your presentation accordingly. For example, at large conferences, a moderator will often be responsible for keeping speakers on schedule, and questions are usually held until the end. In other settings, you may have more time to spend on storytelling and engaging with the audience. In those cases, it may make sense to build in extra time for questions. As you prepare, timing your practice sessions can help you pace your delivery to account for different formats.
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“Practicing your presentation is so important,” stresses Ginny. “I start intensive practice a week before my talk, which for me means giving the presentation a few times each day. Finding time to do this can be challenging, so I also rehearse while doing other things such as commuting or cooking dinner. Practicing like this has the added benefit of helping me learn how to recover when I get distracted or slip up.”
The number of practice sessions you’ll want to conduct can vary depending on a number of factors, including the length of your talk and the amount of time you have to prepare. Practicing at least three times is generally a good goal, with at least one of those practice sessions in front of a live audience. This allows you to
familiarize yourself with your content, refine your delivery, and identify areas for
improvement.
As you practice, get feedback on your presentation and delivery. “Opinions from your lab mates or colleagues are invaluable,” highlights Ginny. “In my experience, they often have great insights. I usually start this process early so I’m not trying to force last-minute changes that could throw me off.”
“It’s also important to get feedback from different audiences,” adds Richard. In addition to experts in your field, consider inviting peers from outside your lab, or possibly from a different research speciality, to learn to articulate messages in different ways.
When your presentation is refined, “print out thumbnails of your slides or make a PDF for your phone,” advises Ginny. “Having your slides handy for reference makes it easier to carve out moments to practice while you’re doing other things.”
Throughout the process, remember that mastery is a journey, not a destination. Trite as it may sound, mistake-making is central to the improvement of any skill. Even well-established speakers get nervous and make mistakes.
“When you feel anxiety creeping in, ‘square breathing’ is a powerful tool for self-regulation and has helped me,” remarks Ginny. “Focus on breathing in for a count of four, holding your breath for a count of four, exhaling for a count of four, and holding again for another count of four.”
Be flexible and recognize you might not get to every point you want to cover. “It's very common to get excited and gloss over something you planned to talk about in detail,” says Ginny. “Try not to let this distract you when it happens!”
Finally, Richard suggests remembering “that we’re our own worst critics. But the truth is, the people who are watching are there to help and want to learn your story. Excitement is contagious. More often than not, if you bring your enthusiasm to your talk, your audience will be excited and supportive as well.”
So, as you step out onto the stage, trust in your preparation, try to relax, and enjoy the rewarding experience of sharing your research with the world.
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