Let’s face it, scientific talks are the most annoying part of a researcher’s job. Talks are an unwelcome interruption to the real work — the actual doing — of science. We are constantly being forced to explain, again and again, what our research means and why it’s important — as if that was not painfully obvious. To help my colleagues to get through this tedious task, here are 6 easy steps I use to minimize the time spent preparing talks, so that we can all return as quickly as possible to the real job of a scientist.
When deciding what data to include in a talk, more is more. Talks are the time to show our colleagues how much work we have accomplished. Should I tell three stories instead of one? Yes. Should I include this control experiment that is only relevant to five people with in-depth knowledge of my field? Yes. Should I show all the alternative ways of quantifying the same data? Absolutely. Don’t be shy about what plots to add or what points to make. We can always fit several results into the same slide, if necessary.
When in doubt, always assume prior knowledge. When giving talks, pick an imaginary person who your talk is for. Imagine that your target audience is the person in the room with the most knowledge about your field. Audiences do not like to be talked down to, or have concepts that they learned 10 to 20 years ago in a class they once took explained to them again. Everyone knows what the role of pyruvate is in cell metabolism, or how to read a t-SNE plot. Instead of wasting time explaining obvious concepts, use that time to include more data (see previous point).
Make your introduction broad—super broad, almost irrelevant. A good introduction should consist of general facts the audience almost certainly knows, to warm them up before you jump into your data. Make it as generic as possible. It needs to only be peripherally related to what you are going to talk about. A good litmus test I use when thinking about whether or not something should be included in the background is to ask myself “Will I reference this information later in the talk?” If the answer is yes, I make sure to leave that fact out of my introduction to avoid redundancy.
Think of slides as abstract art. When making slides, I like to imagine myself as a Jackson Pollock approaching a blank canvas. Instead of splatters of paint, I decorate my slide deck with big blocks of text and diagrams consisting of 20-50 items — because this is too much for anyone to read in the three seconds allotted to the slide, it creates a “choose your own adventure” experience for the viewer, guaranteed to engage and stimulate any audience. To create the ideal composition, I recommend asking an optometrist what is the smallest font-size visible to the human eye.
The minimalist route is an alternative, yet equally successful approach. This aesthetic style consists of removing from the slides anything that could be helpful for the public’s understanding of the information being presented. A non-comprehensive list of things I like to leave out on my slides includes: slide titles, axis labels, axis numbers, axes in general, abbreviation legends, and anything else that throws off the balance of my composition. Don’t be alarmed if you end up with an almost blank slide. You can always just talk for ten minutes without any visual aid.
Summary slides are a waste of time. Never remind listeners of anything you’ve previously said. They should have been paying enough attention to remember. Reminding people of previously stated points takes time away from the data. Besides, telling your audience how a set of experiments fits together denies them the intellectually rigorous experience of puzzling it together for themselves.
Pace yourself. You should be no more than halfway through your slides by the time there are only 5 minutes left. This will force you to speed through the last part of your talk, reinforcing in the audience the effect of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data. If anyone was still holding on at this point, this will be a sure way to lose them.
By following these steps, I find that the audience always fully grasps the meaning of my research. This becomes obvious by the complete lack of questions, a clear sign of perfect understanding on the audience’s part. Mission accomplished. Now I can go back to the real work.