Oral Presentationswhat makes a good talk

Computer Science Research Practicum

Fall 2012

Andrew Rosenberg

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Oral Presentations

• Who is the audience?• What is the purpose?• How to deliver a talk?• What should you put in a talk?

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Who is the audience for an oral presentation?

• Family and friends• A boss• Other administrators• A potential client• A potential funding agency• A professor/advisor• A colleague

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Venues for Oral Presentations

• Research Conferences• Lab Talks• Invited Talks• Job Talks• Keynote Presentations• (Guest Lecturing in) Courses

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You are television.

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What is not the purpose of your talk

• Complete and thorough understanding of the material.– Even if you are teaching.

• To show how smart you are.– from Liang’s slides

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What is the purpose of your talk

• Convey enough information– to give an accurate impression and

intuition– to convince them that they want to

know more

• Share your perspective on this topic.

• Inspire

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Content – What goes in your talk?

• Motivation• Expectations• Use of Humor• Technical Detail• Examples, Examples, Examples• Be visual

– or at least simple

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Presenting a Talk

• “You walk in, plant yourself squarely on both feet, look the other fella in the eye and tell the truth.” – James Cagney

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Presenting a Talk

• You will be nervous

• You will feel more nerves than you show.

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Presenting a Talk

• Your experience of time is different than your audience.

• 20 minutes will feel like a blink.

• 1 minute can feel like an hour.

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How much material?

• Maximum 1 slide per minute.

RULE OF THUMB

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How much material?

• Have extra slides ready for questions.

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Presenting a Talk

• Know what your next slide is.

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Presenting a Talk

• Intonation Matters.

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Presenting a Talk

• Be on time.

• “should I go on?”– The answer is NO.– but no one will say it. (Thanks Liang)

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Be ready for questions

• Be gracious

• Be prepared

• Do NOT be afraid to say “I don’t know”– Being wrong will make you look worse.

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Use of humor

• Tell jokes.– If you are funny.– Not too many.– They must be topical.

• Liang says 3– One at the start to engage the audience– One in the middle to bring them back– One at the end to leave them happy

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What goes on a slide?

• Structure for you and your audience• Text Notes

• Visual Aids

• Data

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Notes for yourself

• Avoid the easy practice of writing down exactly what you want to say.

• This will lead to a boring talk.• Your audience will read along with you, or sometimes

ahead of you.• They will not listen to what you are saying.• It is better to give yourself a couple of high level notes

that remind you and your audience where you are.• This is enough. • If it is not enough, you are not prepared.• Also, slides like this are visual overload on your

audience.• It looks like a big block of text.

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Impression is not a lack of Detail

• Be specific about the contribution.

• Even if people won’t completely get it by the time the talk is over.

• Don’t be vague or overly broad.

What did you do and Why do I care?

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Visual Aids

• Flow charts.

• Examples.

• Animations.– sparingly

Text Documents

Feature Extraction

Classifier Training

Gather Feedback from Users

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Data

• Only include data that you want to talk about.

Baseline My System61% 80%

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Data

• Only include data that you want to talk about.

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Charts and Graphs

• Column/Bar Charts = Categorical X axis

• Line Charts = Continuous X axis

100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 20040

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HDL (mg/dL)

100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 2000

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HDL (mg/dL)

weight (lbs) weight (lbs)

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Charts and Graphs

• Column/Bar Charts = Categorical X axis

• Line Charts = Continuous X axis

weight (lbs) weight (lbs)

Men over 50 Men under 50 Women over 50

Women under 50

01020304050607080

HDL (mg/dL)

Men over 50 Men under 50 Women over 50

Women under 50

01020304050607080

HDL (mg/dL)

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Example Talk

• Title Slide – 1 slide• Problem Statement – 1* slide • Outline• Motivation of your Approach – 1-2 slides• Describe your Approach – 1+ slides• Experimental Results – 1+ slides• Discussion – 1+ slides• Conclusion - 1 Slide• Future Work - 1 Slide• Thanks and Questions – 1 Slide

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Example (bad) Outline (20 min talk)

• The problem.• Why Algorithm is important.• My Algorithm• Experimental Results • Discussion• Conclusion• Future Work

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Example Outline (3 hr talk)

• Preliminary Material [30]

• Techniques for Prosodic Analysis [75]

• AuToBI for Prosodic Analysis [30]

• Applications of Prosodic Analysis [45]

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Practice

• Take opportunities to give more talks.– (Even though you hate it)

• Go to more talks– (Even though you don’t know about the

topic)

• Recognize what you like about good talks– and steal it!

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Practice

• Then practice more.

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Thanks

• Questions?

andrew@cs.qc.cuny.eduhttp://speech.cs.qc.cuny.edu