To give you an idea of the kind of progress students can and should be making over the duration of a course, below are the second, third and fourth slides from one of my PhD students who is studying technology transfer.
Their task in their fi rst presentation was to deliver a 3-4 slide presentation explain- ing to the rest of the class
• what their research topic is
• why this topic is so important
• why they are passionate about their research
In fact, one of the key elements of a credible and authoritative presenter is someone who is really passionate about their work. The secret is to get students to delve inside themselves and fi nd this passion.
The slides on the following pages are identical to the originals, though I have changed the student’s name. Her research is aimed at connecting people in research with people in industry. She is friends with a group of researchers (the ones in the photo in the third slide in Version 2) who have developed a kit for the early detection of breast cancer in women. She wants to help them get their product on the market.
VERSION 1
The main point to realize is that the three slides look virtually identical, all contain complete sentences, and have no images.
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3
Below were my thoughts on her slides while she was presenting them. Obviously, I only mentioned a few of these points when giving her feedback, as my aim at this point in the course is to boost students’ confi dence rather than putting them off presentations completely.
Slide 1 (Research Topic)
All text - looks like a cut and paste from a website (which it is!) and thus contains expressions that are inappropriate for a presentation (e.g. out of the lab door ) or which in any case would sound strange coming out of the mouth of a non-native speaker Long sentences - what can she do other than read it out loud?
Misspellings and spacing: LifeScience, Propriety
Slides 2 (Why it is so important) and 3 (Why I’m so passionate about it) What info does this slide actually give?
What can Giovanna say when she puts up the slide?
After the third slide, the audience will have the nagging doubt that all the slides in the presentation are going to have the same format and they might well become victims of ‘death by Powerpoint’!
Vague statements: innovation is benefi cial to the community . What does this mean?
Misspelling: drog
As a class we also decided that her presentation needed:
• a human touch, some concrete example that clearly indicated her connection with her research, and why she felt it was important; at the moment it all sounds a bit too theoretical
• some pictures
VERSION 2 Slide 1
Giovanna still hasn’t got the title sorted out ( Life Science needs the plural s ) Apart from the photo in the third slide, all the images have been cut and pasted from elsewhere, and while they look professional, in reality, they add no value.
The image in Slide 1 just seems to be there for the sake of it. It may attract the audi- ence’s attention, but they are going to be asking themselves why Giovanna wanted them to look at it.
Slide 2
The image in Slide 2 is there because Giovanna was copying the style of a fellow student who used the same technique, but rather more successfully. Weaker students often introduce features of better presentations but without thinking why such features had originally been used and whether they are appropriate in a different context.
Slide 3
The third slide looks like two slides merged together. Students need to get into the habit of thinking ‘one idea per slide’. The contrast in quality and type of the two images is also negative. The fi rst looks very professional, though is again a cut and paste. The second looks like and is a normal photograph taken with a normal cam- era. This would be fi ne if it was on a separate slide, then it would not clash with the other image.
VERSION 3 Slide 1
Giovanna combined Slides 1 and 2 from Version 1, but she clearly hadn’t taken on board that a slide full of related words doesn’t really serve much purpose. By this time, this kind of slide was like a virus running through the class - all the weaker students were using it! In any case, I tried to make the whole class understand that audiences are not interested in seeing a similar slide in a sequence of presentations.
Slide 2
Slide 2 is still there, but the top part has changed. Important: you can tell students two or three things about their slide, but they’re only likely to take on board (and implement) one of those things. So you might have to tell them about the same issue more than once (i.e. one slide, one idea).
Slide 3
In the third slide, Giovanna has fi nally introduced some hard facts about the topic of her research - transferring innovation gained in the fi eld of the early diagnosis of breast cancer to outside the scientifi c world and into the commercial world.
There are three key issues in this third version:
• the slides are in the wrong order. It would be much better to start with the third slide (i.e. the hard facts rather than the theory) and this itself would probably mean that the fi rst (and maybe the second slide too) could then simply be deleted
• there is too much going on in the third slide. You really have to drum it into students that too much information or too many images can be really distract- ing. Some students get it fi rst time round, but not all do - so don’t worry about repeating yourself
• Giovanna hasn’t used the breast cancer statistics in the best possible way. She has simply given the audience the statistics without involving them. A better approach would be just to have the numbers with no text, then she would have the full attention of the audience. In the case of statistics that are less dra- matic / upsetting, a presenter could set up a quiz, or some true / false ques- tions - again the idea is to get the audience alert
My course ended before Giovanna could have another attempt. But the three ver- sions shown above should give you an idea of the kind of progress you can expect, the pitfalls along the way, but most of all, the immense satisfaction when the stu- dents really ‘get’ what you are trying to teach them.