While the idea of presenting to an audience may seem daunting, an oral presentation allows research to be described in a concise, controlled manner. Oral presentations can reach a wider audience and receive fewer questions with little to no interruptions.
Given the need for practice at one’s own pace to be able to master presentation skills, the authors recommend freely available educational tools like Virtual-i Pre- senter.1which is a video and PowerPoint presentation recording software that allows
1http://www.virtual-i-presenter.info/.
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D. Deb et al.,Engineering Research Methodology, Intelligent Systems Reference Library 153,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2947-0_9
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for evaluation by experts and improvement. Here are a few aspects to keep in mind when giving an oral presentation:
• Get to presentation room early and test the technology.
• Keep it simple. Ditch the complex animations, large blocks of text, and complicated graphics.
• Do not just read the contents. The slides should only be a guide for your presen- tation, and as a way to illustrate your research to your audience.
• Pay attention to nonverbal skills. Audience may be excited about the talk only if the presenter is. Make eye contact, move around, and vary the voice for emphasis.
It is not a good idea to show an outline of the presentation unless the presentation is at least half an hour long, and always be sure to discuss the meaning of the results presented. Reinforcement of the key points in the concluding slide is a must.
Visual elements are critical components in effective oral presentation, especially for engineers. The importance of imagery and how it relates to branding, memory recall, and awareness cannot be underestimated. Using one relevant image can have quite an impact.
As in the research work, during presentation one has to structure the ideas, facts, and data into a logical convincing story using a narrative structure. We are not sug- gesting fabricating a catching tale, but the ideas, facts, data, and results have to be structured into an interesting story to be told during the presentation. Depending on the “design” skills of the speaker and audience’s taste, slides can potentially cre- ate different emotions from a slight annoyance to physical sickness, but the worst part is that instead of improving the presentation such slides confuse the audience, distract them, and finally oblige the speaker to explain them rather than being as self- explanatory as possible. A suggested distribution of time for a research presentation is shown in Fig.9.1.
Fig. 9.1 A suggested flow of presentation (in timescale)
9.1 Oral Presentations 91
9.1.1 Language Choices
The language choices in a technical presentation are dictated by the prior knowledge of the audience. A presentation made to general public naturally uses a significantly different language than a presentation given to colleagues or supervisor.
The employment of analogies, examples, and stories can often be the difference between a good presentation and a great one. Examples and stories help technical information to “come alive” for an audience and most engineering presentations benefit from it. Analogies are powerful speech strategies which anchor a complex technical idea to something that an audience already understands, thereby providing a deeper form of learning and higher amount of retention. While introducing a new term, one must clearly define it to ensure that your audience is on the same page with the presenter. An excellent language strategy that helps engage the audience in the presentation is to preempt where they would have questions about the material. One can verbally acknowledge this to the audience, “So you might be wondering at this point …” This makes the audience feel as though the presenter is relating this talk to their needs and the result will be that they will be more likely to stay engaged.
9.1.2 Delivery
The voice and body language can enhance the messaging in a technical presentation even though content is obviously the most important part. Energy and enthusiasm are definitely key attributes for effective delivery. A presenter should identify few aspects of one’s research that one is enthusiastic about and let that come through in the presentation in a seamless fashion. Although it is crucial that the delivery be natural, practicing a lot while incorporating strategies like vocal emphasis or effective movement can help one develop a natural and effective style so that one need not be resigned to just trying to survive the presentations instead of trying to thrive within them. Putting in the time and preparing thoroughly can provide the confidence on the content, and all that remains in to convey the understanding to the audience while allowing one’s passion to come out.
A few areas of delivery are especially critical for researchers:
(i) The speed of the presenter’s speech should be such that there is enough time for the audience to keep up with the material while processing the usually dense information conveyed, and if required the content should be reduced.
(ii) Pauses are an important delivery tool that allows the audience to absorb the content delivered and emphasize it, while also allowing the presenter to organize thoughts on subsequent content.
(iii) Make specific and sustained eye contact with individual members and be sure to not spend too much time talking to the slides. Again, practice will help to be more comfortable with making eye contact with the audience. Eye contact
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also provides feedback as one can ascertain if the audience looks confused and perhaps needs more explanation.
(iv) A researcher is expected to speak to the audience from one’s knowledge of the material and not relying on notes which has a negative impact on the presenter’s credibility.