Presentations and posters

• Damiano Oldoni

INBO scientific communication 2023
Image by Jason Rosewell
On this page

General

  • Website
  • Organizer: Dirk Maes and Petra Vijncke (INBO)
  • Host: INBO, Herman Teirlinck building, Brussels
  • Date: 04/12/2023
  • Slides (access restricted)

Why?

  • Efficient way to knowledge transfer
  • Network
  • Papers of presentations are more often cited than others

Poster or presentation?

Poster:

  • More complex message
  • Less time limits
  • Less informal
  • Limited public
  • More personal
  • If your neighbour doesn’t understand anything of it

Presentation:

  • Short, simple message
  • Limited time (max 20 mins)
  • Bigger audience
  • Bigger impact
  • If you want to explain something to your neighbour

Posters

What is a poster?

  • An A0 piece of paper
  • Clear summary of your research
  • Reading time: max 5 mins
  • Readibility from ~ 2, 3 meters
  • Good to understand without guidelines
  • Organized, typically in columns with enough white space between sections
  • Only essential information
  • Target audience
  • Follow often IMRaD (nut not always)
  • Short, bullet points, no full sentences

Layout posters

  • Unique but serious on the same time
  • Most important stuff at eye height
  • Better landscape than portrait
  • PowerPoint, LaTex, Cs3, Inkscape, …
  • Reading direction
  • Add white space: it creates calm
  • Use sans-serif font types: e.g. Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Ca
  • black text on white

Check Leen Ponfliet handbook.

Presentations

Preparation even before you start making your slides:

  • Environmental factors
  • Content and technical preparation
  • Presentation in yor hand? No, not too big
  • Recorded and online shared?
  • Public
  • Facility

Knowledge of your target audience is the key factor for preparing your presentation.

Knowledge of the room is essential. Be on time. Ask to test your presentation.

Preparing a presentation takes time.

Do I make hands-out? Yes you can, but not read them: boring. And should I share them on screen? No, otherwise people start to read them and not follow you.

Choice stress: Google Slides, Powerpoint, Prezi, Keynote, …?

Typically MS Powerpoint is the best choice. Put it on GDrive then. In this way you are sure layout doesn’t change when downloading it: this can happen while making Google Slides.

Prezi: graphically very nice, but it can be too much “show” and it risks to be very chaotic.

Content:

  • core message: each presentation has one, only one core message
  • Begin with a ice breaker: your stress level decreases and the audience gets an attention boost
  • You know typically much more than everybody else in the room: so, do not overstress!
  • Varied, inspiring and funny enough

Preparation is everything.

Core message:

  • dependent on the target audience. The listener plays the main role. Who is the listener?

Remain to the core message, each slide! Ask to yourself: is this slide important for bringing the core message?

Structure: clear scenario!

The typical “Greek tragedy” structure:

  • context (intro)
  • midden: hypothesis, methods, etc.
  • conclusion

Use a strong, attractive title.

How to build your presentation: take a blanco sheet and make a mindmap. In this ways you discover the clusters in your tale and define the best structure to explain the key message.

Structure makes the difference between success or failure. Pay attention to:

  • Logical flow
  • Easy to remember
  • Listener must understand where you are in the structure
  • Repeat the head content sentences (with figures or small titles)

Ice breaker: it can be a question, an enigma, a meme, a citation, a picture. A question to your public is a great way to break the ice.

Not done habits of a presenter:

  • Read from a A4 paper
  • Watch the slides only instead of the public

Exercise by giving a presentation with photo only and without text.

Body language:

  • Presenter position in the room: find contact with public if it’s possible. Do not sit. Use a pointer. The pointer is also a good tool to have a good hands posture.
  • Eye contact. Watch your public: ont only a person of course. Scan the entire audience.
  • Read the body language of your audience: the best feedback.
  • Do not stay in the shadow/dark zone of the room.

Layout:

  • Use contrast
  • Use 24 <= font size <= 44
  • Same fonttypes as posters
  • Chosen backgrounds must not be distracting

Content:

  • A image is more worth than 1000 words
  • Short video can work even better, but check that it works and not exagerate
  • Use “telegram style”
  • One bullet point per slide: the audience cannot read further and so follows you = higher attention level
  • Check spelling,: capitalize sentences, spelling mistakes, …
  • graphs cannot describe themselves: you need to do it! Do it clearly
  • Do not put unreadable graphs, tables or diagrams
  • Pie charts are not done in scientific papers, BUT they are perfectly accetable in presentations. They can be the best choice even!

Talk:

  • Use presentation modus
  • Timing: it depends on the content of the slides. Typically 1 minute - 2 minutes
  • Use a clock
  • Ask a signal from the chair man
  • Plan and exercise: take into account a buffer period (unexpected events or you get slower than expected)