Tips for Presenting your Research
1. Be familiar with the format: Most academic presentations follow the same format as research written for journals or books and is very formulaic:
2. Honor time constraints: At many conferences time is very limited and multiple participants present in a single time block. Practice your presentation in advance allowing ample time for questions if need be. It is considered very rude to go over time at an academic conference.
3. Formulate your information for your audience: Remember you are for the most part presenting to other professionals in your field. Focus on information your audience needs to hear as they will often have at least a basic grasp of many of the fundamentals of your topic of study.
4. Keep your presentations in an easily referable to format: Whether you are using Prezi/Powerpoint, giving a poster session or passing out hand-out, make sure the information you presenting on easily accessible and can be referred to easily for listeners when giving your presentation. Keep in mind simple aspects like font sizes and colors, use of bullet points and inclusion of data figures & tables for your most important points.
5. Include contact information: Always bring a supply of business cards to a conference both for those interested in your own work, but also so you can give them to others whose research you found interesting after they have presented. Include your contact information in your presentation so that other can contact you. If you are using online Prezi or other online presentation software you can include a QR code (Available for free from http://www.qrstuff.com/) with a link to your presentation.
6. Don’t sweat the hecklers though do take constructive feedback: While it is for the most part a rarity, unfortunately as in all other fields, you may occasionally find hecklers or those all too willing to point out critical elements of your study in a public format. Do realize that most participants are presenting work-in-progress (pre-publication) studies and many times the feedback we receive can help us to better our research. Still if you are unfortunate enough to have audience member with a lack of social grace feel free to offer to talk them in depth after the presentation in private rather creating potentially socially awkward situations in front of a live audience.
Again most professionals will be kind in their constructive criticism, but remember you are at the conference in-part as a representative of your school and it is your presentation. If you feel things are getting out of hand politely offer to speak to others after your presentation. Feel free to move on to other questions or if there are none, end the formal presentation early.
7. See how others are presenting: Go to other presentations in the format your presentation will be in (i.e.: Same length, same presentation format, or even same topic). See how other professionals are presenting. This can give you some great examples to model from.
8. Have fun: Remember ultimately most of your audience will consist of peers in your field, many of whom are also presenting. While presenting can seem scary the first time (much as teaching may have), most everyone in the audience has been there before. Don’t be afraid to tell everyone it’s your first academic presentation (ever or for a specific conference) as most of your audience will have been in your shoes at one time or another.
1. Be familiar with the format: Most academic presentations follow the same format as research written for journals or books and is very formulaic:
- Introduction/Overview
- Theoretical Framework/Rational for creation of study
- Background/Literature Review that informs research questions
- Research Questions
- Methodology/Case Selection
- Discussion of Data/Results
- Analysis/Interpretation
- Conclusion
- Future implications/limitations
2. Honor time constraints: At many conferences time is very limited and multiple participants present in a single time block. Practice your presentation in advance allowing ample time for questions if need be. It is considered very rude to go over time at an academic conference.
3. Formulate your information for your audience: Remember you are for the most part presenting to other professionals in your field. Focus on information your audience needs to hear as they will often have at least a basic grasp of many of the fundamentals of your topic of study.
4. Keep your presentations in an easily referable to format: Whether you are using Prezi/Powerpoint, giving a poster session or passing out hand-out, make sure the information you presenting on easily accessible and can be referred to easily for listeners when giving your presentation. Keep in mind simple aspects like font sizes and colors, use of bullet points and inclusion of data figures & tables for your most important points.
5. Include contact information: Always bring a supply of business cards to a conference both for those interested in your own work, but also so you can give them to others whose research you found interesting after they have presented. Include your contact information in your presentation so that other can contact you. If you are using online Prezi or other online presentation software you can include a QR code (Available for free from http://www.qrstuff.com/) with a link to your presentation.
6. Don’t sweat the hecklers though do take constructive feedback: While it is for the most part a rarity, unfortunately as in all other fields, you may occasionally find hecklers or those all too willing to point out critical elements of your study in a public format. Do realize that most participants are presenting work-in-progress (pre-publication) studies and many times the feedback we receive can help us to better our research. Still if you are unfortunate enough to have audience member with a lack of social grace feel free to offer to talk them in depth after the presentation in private rather creating potentially socially awkward situations in front of a live audience.
Again most professionals will be kind in their constructive criticism, but remember you are at the conference in-part as a representative of your school and it is your presentation. If you feel things are getting out of hand politely offer to speak to others after your presentation. Feel free to move on to other questions or if there are none, end the formal presentation early.
7. See how others are presenting: Go to other presentations in the format your presentation will be in (i.e.: Same length, same presentation format, or even same topic). See how other professionals are presenting. This can give you some great examples to model from.
8. Have fun: Remember ultimately most of your audience will consist of peers in your field, many of whom are also presenting. While presenting can seem scary the first time (much as teaching may have), most everyone in the audience has been there before. Don’t be afraid to tell everyone it’s your first academic presentation (ever or for a specific conference) as most of your audience will have been in your shoes at one time or another.