Tips for Oral Presentations

• Impose a logical structure/framework for your talk, tell the audience what the structure will be, and stick to it. Remember--the typical time slot for a research presentation is only10 minutes.

• Use the same basic organization as a written report--Introduction/Background, Method, Results, Conclusions, Discussion, etc.

• Simplify and stress important elements--be redundant if necessary.

• Try to tell a "good story"--take a step back from the detail and convey the main points. Your job is to synthesize, simplify, and convey main ideas in a fresh, interesting way.

• Know and stress your "take-home message."

• Be relaxed, but professional. Show your personality, but also show your knowledge of the area by using correct terminology and a professional tone.

• Practice your talk multiple times--if necessary, write it out as you would say it and practice until you can work only from an outline/index cards.

• Do NOT read your talk--work from an outline or index cards with sparse notes.

• Use PowerPoint to supplement & compliment your words--you are still the focus. Whenever possible, SHOW your audience what you are talking about. Create tables, graphs, examples of stimuli to illustrate your point. To convey the results, always present a table (for few conditions) or graph (if many conditions or pattern is difficult to pick up in a table).

A sample PPT presentation   Also add a References slide at the end.