Presentation Skills and Teamwork:! Part II: Review and Discussion! Dr. S. Gibson & Dr. S. Boogert! Second Year post exam bonanza, June 2013! Outline!! Organization for talks!! Voting!! Examples of talks!! Talk tips!
Organization on Tuesday!! The talks will be run like a conference session, with a timed agenda.! Your team will be assigned a time slot according to your team size so that every member is given 5 minutes of face time:! Team of 3:!15 minutes+5 minutes questions = 20 minutes total! Team of 4:!20 minutes+5 minutes questions = 25 minutes total! Team of 5:!25 minutes+5 minutes questions = 30 minutes total!! What is expected on the day?! Please arrive with your talk on a memory stick or uploaded to the Twiki/agenda by the start of the Tuesday morning session.! During your talk, the moderators will encourage speakers to switch after 5 minutes.! The moderators will also show timing cards: 5 mins, 2 mins and 0 mins total left.! Keep to time - if your team overruns, you will be stopped (and penalized in the voting).! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 2!
One rule!! You have to be there for duration of all talks otherwise your team will be disqualified from the prize. Why?! As a courtesy to other speakers, don t just leave after your talk! So you can listen to the other talks and ask questions at the end.! You ll need to hear all talks to vote consistently.!! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 3!
Voting criteria!! Everyone gets to vote and give feedback! After each talk you will cast your vote using clickers.! Individuals do the voting, rather than by team.!! Voting criteria and feedback will be in three categories:! Content slides / graphics / layout.! Message and delivery clarity of speaking, changeovers, order.! Organization and teamwork even division of talk time, staying to time.! Voting criteria and feedback will be in three categories:!! Final vote falls to a 33% share between: Dr Boogert, Dr Gibson and the Class.! If Dr Boogert and Dr Gibson pick different teams, the Class has the deciding vote on who goes to CERN! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 4!
Presentation preparation! Recap, last time we looked at:!! Audience and message! Who are you talking to? Why are you talking?!! Choice and level of topic! Too easy? Too hard? Gentle and clear introduction.!! However, it s possible to get all the above right and still mess up on the presentation style! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 5!
Choose your font wisely! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 6!
Choose your font wisely! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 7!
Higgs presentations!! Compare the video / slides for CMS and ATLAS here:!! https://indico.cern.ch/conferencedisplay.py?confid=197461!! https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459565!! Both speakers are world renowned physicists, at the top of their game.!! Both talks gave an identical message we ve discovered a Higgs-like boson!!! What do you like / dislike?! Backgrounds! Font: style, size, colour! Titles! Diagrams! Balance of text / graphics.! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 8!
Talk structure!!! Say what you are going to say, say it, and then say that you said it.!! Most talks use the following structure:! Title - the title should be informative, enticing and give an idea of the style.! Who gives the talk? [where you are from] [when and where the talk is being given].! Outline! The talk itself [If a long talk, perhaps some occasional chapter headings ]! Summary and/or Conclusions! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 9!
Main Talk Title! Slide template! People waking halfway through the session may like to know which talk they re on!! Clearly title the slide content!! Make a template in your personal style.!! Doesn t have to be a stock powerpoint template create your own!!! Some big text at this level with the main message! Some smaller text! That people can read if they re interested! But will probably skip at this level! Unless they re super keen / reviewing the slides later.! Page number! Only opticians can read this.! Small institute logo! (big logos on title page)! Presenter. Some may add! the talk location / date here! Presenter Name! 10!
Slide background! (K. Peach, JAI)! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 11!
Slide background! (K. Peach, JAI)! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 12!
Slide background! Background with Washout! Can still see the picture! and the text reasonably clearly! but still distracting?! (K. Peach, JAI)! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 13!
Making a point! Full text Without the Higgs mechanism, all of the particles in the Standard Model (quarks, leptons, gauge bosons) are massless. What the Higgs mechanism does, respecting the underlying symmetry of the Standard Model while spontaneously breaking that symmetry, is to give all of the particles and the weak gauge bosons mass, as well as protecting the masslessness of the photon. A physical consequence of the Higgs mechanism is that there is one massive scalar field that cannot be absorbed in the masses of the other particles, and this is the Higgs boson. Bulleted text Unbroken SM Quarks, leptons massless All gauge bosons massless Higgs mechanism Respects the underlying gauge symmetry Spontaneous symmetry breaking Quarks, leptons! mass W,Z! mass! remains massless Consequence Physical scalar field The Higgs Boson (K. Peach, JAI)! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 14!
Making a point! Full text with emphasis Without the Higgs mechanism, all of the particles in the Standard Model (quarks, leptons,gauge bosons) are massless. What the Higgs mechanism does, while respecting the underlying symmetry of the Standard Model as well as spontaneously breaking that symmetry, is to give all of the particles and the weak gauge bosons mass, but protecting the masslessness of the photon. A physical consequence of the Higgs mechanism is that there is one massive scalar field that cannot be absorbed in the masses of the other particles, and this is the Higgs boson. Bulleted text with emphasis Unbroken SM Quarks, leptons massless All gauge bosons massless Higgs mechanism Respects the underlying gauge symmetry Spontaneous symmetry breaking Quarks, leptons! mass W,Z! mass! remains massless Consequence Physical scalar field The Higgs Boson (K. Peach, JAI)! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 15!
Tools, formulae and animation!! Tools with which to craft your presentation! MS Powerpoint! KeyNote! OpenOffice! Beamer (LaTeX based)!! Formulae generally keep to a minimum (unless a theory talk).! Microsoft equation! MathType! LaTeX! Complicated formulae need to be explained in sections (use animation).!! Animation with ppt:! Can sometimes be useful but often overdone / excessive. Use mainly for emphasis of a point. Embedded videos also often fail test!! Can also create animations with a.pdf sequence.! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 16!
Talk timing!! Most speakers tend to overrun the allocated time.!! Serial coffee drinkers may under run.!! Golden rule is to have 1 minute per slide.!! Speak at a normal pace.!! Practice giving a timed talk beforehand.!! Practice again.!! Work on what you will say until you can say it succinctly, clearly and within the time allowed!! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 17!
Other considerations!! Use clear infographics and diagrams for effect:! 1 picture = 1000 words. Also >1000x larger: compress to reduce file size.! Add relevant labels.!! Plots are essential in most physics presentations! Is the plot large enough to be clearly visible?! Ensure readable axes from back of lecture theatre.! Title + add relevant scales, labels and units. Key?! Is the plot readable in B/W?!! Dress code:! The slides alone do not make the biggest impression: you do!!! Jokes /cartoon! Humour can make a serious point. Properly done it lodges in the brain.! Must be relevant.! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 18!
Resources! This author has hit the proverbial nail on the head, sending much needed advice to speakers in the scientific community With such a wealth of information in such a little book, it deserves a niche in the briefcase of all scientists and engineers interested in improving their public speaking skills. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. (from Chemical Abstracts Service) From our point of view, the book is too prescriptive in some cases just wrong (it advises writing out the full text of your presentation in words before you do anything else). A horrendous book by my former professor..., Upon reading and studying this guide, I wholly expected that it would provide me with knowledge and confidence in presentations. I was unfortunate enough to encounter Dr. Walters as a professor AFTER reading this title, and am appalled at his lecturing skills. One would think that he would take a few hints/ pointers from his own text and apply them to his lecturing. (Review on Amazon) Each chapter starts with a story illustrating something that went wrong with a presentation, and then trying to extract the lessons from it. Probably closest to our approach basically sound This is a new book from professional communicators (5 easy steps to the perfect presentation) and claims to be the result of many years of experience running courses. A bit too slick for our taste in general, physicists are a bit wary of a presentation that is too slick. S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 19!
Resources! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 20!