Charisma, Content Make For Effective Scientific Presentations
KUDOS AT ACS: Spicing up a presentation on polymer architecture earned rave reviews for Cornell grad student Portia Yarborough. A few hours before her scheduled talk at the American Chemical Society's meeting this fall in Las Vegas, Portia Yarborough rehearsed her presentation for a friend. A chemistry graduate student at Cornell University, Yarborough wanted her talk to be perfect. Practicing, she laid out the slides, spoke slowly, and shared her research results. Her friend's comment: "Borin
Oct 12, 1997
![]() KUDOS AT ACS: Spicing up a presentation on polymer architecture earned rave reviews for Cornell grad student Portia Yarborough. |
Her friend's comment: "Boring."
What Yarborough had forgotten was enthusiasm. It's a common mistake, communications specialists say. In the worst cases, researchers simply read from transparencies, piling monotone fact upon fact. Another frequent gaffe is information overload. Cramming too much material into a talk, scientists either saunter past the time limit or speak too quickly. Jargon, too, foils many a presentation. And cluttered visuals-such as posters or transparencies-bury main messages in a sea of prose.
![]() LEARNED STYLE: "Everyone... |
Interested in reading more?
Become a Member of
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member?