Giving Good Presentations

The conference this past weekend reminded me that a lot of people don’t have good presentation or public speaking skills. This is nothing specific to the Mars Society, and there were many good presenters with good presentation materials, but there were some which were actually painful to sit through. I ended up with quite a list of notes on this topic, and some advice on how to avoid the most egregious mistakes.

• Cramming too much information onto one slide.
  • One manifestation of the “eye chart” phenomenon — huge blocks of text, dozens of bullet points, and brain-glazing columns of numbers are impossible to read and/or make sense of in the short time they are shown on the screen. Worse, trying to make sense of them will distract your audience from what you’re trying to say — so, even if you are giving them the nutshell version of what the information says, they may not be listening.
  • TIP: summarize — our style manual at work recommends no more than 35 words per slide. The information will be included in the paper anyway — you’re not there to read the paper, but to present the results. (Which leads us to the next common mistake…)
• Reading your slides.
  • The presenter stands in front of the screen, looking at it rather than the audience, and reads every word on every slide. Or similarly, they read aloud directly from notes. This is irritating for two reasons: first, it insults the audience with the implicit assumption that they can’t read for themselves, and second, it wastes time — the audience can read with their eyes faster than you can read the same text aloud to them.
  • TIP: summarize, or at the very least vary your speech from what is written on the slides. It’s best to use very brief slides which function as mindjoggers to direct your presentation, allowing you to improvise based on your knowledge of the material. Improvisation is sometimes risky, but it makes for a much more lively and interesting presentation versus simply reading from your slides or notes.
• Illegible text and/or graphics.
  • Text is placed over graphics, with insufficient contrast for easy legibility. Graphics or images are grainy, indistinct, or illegible. Line charts are a plate of spaghetti, or colors are so similar that they are impossible to interpret. Color originals are printed (or photocopied!) as monochrome slides, with no attention paid to the effects on legibility. Lack of contrast, such as dark text placed on a dark background.
  • TIPS: learn to use the black-and-white preview button in PowerPoint. The black-and-white preview button is your friend. Find a presentation with legible and attractive color, font, and graphics combinations…and steal it for your own template. Or, just use one of PowerPoint’s sample templates. If your background is light, your text and figures should be dark, and vice versa. Avoid background/watermark graphics. Less is more — as with cramming too much text onto a slide, cramming too many graphical items onto a slide, or trying too hard to be “artistic” with your layout, will often backfire. Instead, try a spartan approach, including only what graphics are absolutely required.
• Inconsistent formatting across slides.
  • Different fonts, sizes, colors, layouts. “Did I nod off and wake up in the next presentation?” Not only does it often result in hard-to-read slides, it’s distracting to have the format change each time, and the use of too many formatting tricks (fonts, text colors, text decoration) makes an unreadable mess of the material you’re presenting.
  • TIP: make it easy for your audience to follow your presentation by using a consistent (and visually simple) format. Learn to use PowerPoint’s “slide master” layout functions. Use a consistent header, with the title of your presentation on each slide, followed by the subject of the individual slide. Use consistent fonts, colors, and text decorations (the less, the better).
• Too many slides for the allotted time.
  • Slides are flicking across the screen so quickly they induce seizures in the audience. The presenter has so many slides to get through that he/she feels compelled to rush through them — ironically shortchanging the audience in the process. So much time is spent on the slides that there is no time left for Q&A (which isn’t a bad thing, of course, if you really don’t know what you’re talking about).
  • TIP: limit the number of slides by planning one slide per two minutes of presentation. In my presentation on Saturday, I used fourteen content slides, plus one title slide, for a thirty minute presentation — and even with a few unplanned digressions and more detailed discussion than I had planned for, I finished my slides and Q&A with two minutes to spare. This rule of thumb will both limit the number of slides and force you to make them concise.
• Disorganized presentation, or no structure.
  • “Where is this guy going?” “Oh, he just totally lost me.” “What’s the point he’s trying to make?” “Please please please get to the point!” “And this has what to do with the topic in the program?” The presentation seems to have no direction, wanders all over, strays from the stated topic into something totally different, etc.
  • TIP: start with an outline. No, start with some idea of what it is you are going to say, a clear focus on the point or points you wish to make. Then make an outline, laying out clear, well-reasoned arguments and supporting evidence for your points. Stick to those points, and be sure to summarize them as conclusions at the end. If you want to be extra clear, include your conclusions at the beginning, too, to clue the audience in to what you are about to say.
• No conclusions or “take away” points.
  • The presenter throws a bunch of info at you, but doesn’t make it clear what his arguments or conclusions are. You end up having no idea what he/she was getting at (even if the slides were well done and well narrated).
  • TIP: as noted above, include a conclusions slide at the end of the presentation. If the material or the arguments are inherently difficult to follow, or if you can’t avoid making an eye-chart slide for some reason, add a “take away” bullet at the end of slides where it is needed. This bullet should be set off from the rest of the text, and should summarize in a few words what it is you’re trying to convey to the audience with that slide. For example: a slide with two columns of numbers comparing, say, soil constituents at different lander sites might include a take away point highlighting the one difference most relevant to the topic of the presentation.
• Tremulous or monotone voice, other avoidable verbal annoyances.
  • The speaker stammers, needs to clear his/her throat but doesn’t, speaks in monotone, drones drones drones, whispers, uses “um” or “uhh” or “ahh” every other word, etc.
  • TIP: this takes a bit of practice, and sometimes some confidence-building, to overcome. Consider taking a public-speaking workshop, or joining an organization such as Toastmasters, where you can get focused advice and constructive, immediate feedback on how to improve your speaking voice. Or put yourself through college as a telemarketer, like I did (though that’s a much much more painful path to follow). Practice listening to yourself as you speak in everyday conversation — do you modulate your voice, use pause words, enunciate properly, etc.? Record yourself practicing your presentation, and listen for these mistakes — being conscious of them makes them much easier to eliminate.

Those were the main points, but there were other mistakes (such as wearing inappropriate attire for the occasion, or convincing your audience that you are a complete a****** before your second slide) which do not require elaboration. Hopefully this is of some use.