Preparing Presentations

Getting Started

1. Before starting anything, ask yourself “Who is my audience and how much time will I have to present?” A 12-minute presentation at AIChE in the CRE division will likely look different compared to a 30-minute G.R.A.S.S. talk to the general audience that is the department.
2. See the Getting Started section in the Preparing Manuscripts page. If you haven’t written a manuscript for this project yet, it’s important to ask yourself these questions beforehand, as they serve as the foundation of the presentation. The way you answer these questions should be dictated by the assumed background knowledge your audience has (e.g., you don’t have to describe what Monte Carlo is at a computational session).
3. At this point, you should section your work. Usually the standard separation of intro/background/motivation, methods, results/discussion, and conclusions/future work is sufficient, but you may need sub-segments in methods or results depending on whether the presentation is methods- or results-focused. For each segment/sub-segment, ask yourself “What is the overarching takeaway point for this section?”
   • If you have a manuscript prepared (as with qualifying exams), read through the paper and write down what you think the main takeaway point is for each section.
   • The segments shouldn’t be the same lengths. Depending on time constraints, some sections may need to be shortened to allow for other sections to shine. A good rule of thumb is to have the intro/motivation only be 2–4 minutes so you can spend the majority of the time talking about your research.
4. With the key takeaways written, ask yourself “How do we go from one takeaway to another?” Essentially, what is the general story you want to tell? Keep in mind that the story you’re crafting doesn’t need to be told chronologically — this is usually the case for the results sections. If the analyses were performed A → B → C but a more compelling narrative can be told going A → C → B, then that’s fine.
5. Only at this point should you ask “What figures, analysis background, system descriptions, simulation flowcharts, etc. do I need to ensure the takeaways are well understood by the audience?” (i.e., how can I make sure the audience appreciates this outcome?)
   • Assuming you don’t have some from the manuscript, when making these figures it may be easier to roughly sketch them on paper and see if they’re clear. Ask a labmate if it makes sense to them without prompting them with what they’re trying to understand.
6. At this point, the entire skeleton of the presentation should be done and it should be relatively clear how to make the slides or how to structure the poster.

Tips

• Most importantly, always try to make sure your audience leaves feeling they learned something.
• There are two ways to make slides, having slide animations animations (see Anne’s slides) or having many slides that progressively build off each other (see Joseph’s slides). Peng usually prefers the latter as it’s easier for him to use if he needs to use your slides for a presentation. To do this effectively, make all the “main slides” with all the conclusions, figures, etc. in them, then progressively delete and hide sections. This will make sure that no figures/textboxes are being accidentally shifted. If you want, keep a copy with just the main slides so you can easily look back at the presentation.
• Each “main slide” should roughly be about 1-1.5 minutes.
• Often times, it’s impossible to show every analysis you’ve done. This is usually for the best, as you can have more in-depth discussion on the analyses you are presenting.
• For complex methods or analysis, it’s usually better to explain and show things step-by-step rather than showing everything at once (time permitting).
• Similarly, for graphs, try to explain what the x-axis is describing, what the y-axis is describing, and generally how to read the graph. Just showing a graph and saying “This is the conclusion you should be drawing” is a data dump and will leave the audience unfulfilled.
• For slides with conclusions, write out the conclusion and make it clear that it is the key takeaway (either make it bold or put it in a box). This may seem unnecessary if you’re saying the conclusion aloud, but ensuring that the audience is on the same page as you is always for the best.
• For acknowledgements, computational resources (NERSC, ACCESS, etc.) will usually have approved images on their websites that they want you to use.
• It helps to have a loose script for each slide. This ensures you know the talking points and is a good safeguard for when you stumble and need to recover, while also making sure the talk doesn’t feel “too scripted.”
• Slide titles should be descriptive. Don’t use something vague like “Analysis” as a title — be more specific, such as “Quantitative Analysis of Structure.”

Talks

Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations (Philip E. Bourne, 2007)

Effective Presentations—A Must (Craig J. Hawker)

How to give a good research talk (Simon Peyton Jones, John Hughes, John Launchbury, 1993), PPT

Improving Scientific Presentations: 10 Commandments (Eray Aydil, 2025)

Posters

Ten simple rules for a good poster presentation (Thomas C. Erren, Philip E. Bourne, 2007)

Optimize your conference poster’s impact (AIChE 2010)

Speaking Tips for Presenting a Poster (ACS, 2009)

Tips for Presenting an Undergraduate Poster (ACS, 2012)

Advice on designing scientific posters (Colin B. Purrington, 2006)

Poster Presentations (Hilary M Jones)

Mortal sins in poster presentations or, How to give the poster no one remembers (Thomas G. Wolcott, 1997)

The DOs and DONTs of poster presentation (Steven M. Block, 1996)

Style

1. Citations: Use a simplified style: “Last Name 1, Last Name 2, …, J. Abbr., Year, Vol, First Page”. When the author list is too long (e.g., >3), use “Last Name 1, et al.”