Giving a fantastic presentation is the simplest way to stand out in the academia. Particularly when I talk of academic conferences. If you have attended an academic conference, you would be able to relate to this more easily. You can adopt some very simple techniques to ensure that your presentation is different. It will surely ask you to invest more time and effort in it but trust my words, it won’t be a worthless investment.
Do a thoughtful use of power point: All good presentations are made up of visuals and the extent to which you use visuals will be determined by your field of study though. However, which stream you belong to, the way that you use power point is going to be very important. Make sure font size is not smaller than 24, u have used bullet points liberally and not lot of text is put onto one single slide. Do good use of images and try to replace lot of text with images and only little text. Never read out from your slides. Use slides only as an aid and support for the content you wish to speak verbally.
If you are new to the trend of giving presentations it is always advisable to stick to a specific formula. Though the formula may be different in each field, it will sure give you an idea about the pattern that a good presentation should follow:
- Introduction
- Theoretical Framework
- Literature Review
- Output/results
- Data Analysis
- Conclusion
Make sure that your presentation is actually your own presentation which means that do not throw a lot of stress on existing literature review. The audience would relate more to what you have discovered new in your research and not what they already know. Discuss the literature that is relevant, very briefly. Other than that your main focus should be on your own data and discussion of your own findings in the study. This will keep your audience engaged and engrossed for long.
Never take practice for granted when you have to give a presentation. Even if you think it is a waste of time or appears silly to you need to practice to know a lot of things about your presentation. It should fall within the given time frame and has a good flow. Practice as much as you can
Lastly, don’t think that talking beyond your time limit is cool. It is never so try to finish you presentation in the timeframe allotted to you.