ECE 538/638: Presentation Tips

Outline and Content

Most presentations will consist of the following elements.

• Title Slide. Should include project title, your name, and the name of the class. Optionally it may include your department, research laboratory, company, acknowledgement of financial support, and/or your institution.
• Outline. Should include a short list (maybe 4-6 bullets) that explain how your talk is organized. Should only be one slide.
• Objectives. What was the goal of your project. What precisely did you set out to achieve?
• Significance. What is the significance of your project? If you were extremely successful at achieving your project goals, who would care and what impact could it have? These are 1-term projects, so I don't expect your projects to save the world, but you should have an idea of how this fits into the bigger picture and why people might care about your work.
• Methodology. How did you achieve your project objectives? What methods did you use? Why did you choose these methods? How did you measure the degree of success and/or failure at achieving the project objectives?
• Results. How well did your methods work? Was the performance significantly better than competing methods? Was it statistically significant. The results will generally be numerical and should be expressed in units that the class is familiar with such as percent accuracy (for classification) or in terms of p-values for statistical significance.
• Conclusion. What do you, as the investigator, conclude from this project?

Things to Do (Dos)

• Include an Outline. Near the beginning of your talk, give an outline explaining the steps that you will lead your audience through during your talk.
• Use Pictures. Take the time to draw diagrams and illustrations to explain concepts. Complicated algorithms should be presented as block diagrams that flow left to right, as we are accustomed to.
• Pace Yourself. Orgainize your talk so that you spend the right amount of time on the right topics.
• Limit to a Few Ideas. You should design your talk so that you communicate only a few (no more than 4) key ideas. You should know what these ideas are and design your talk to ensure that you get these ideas across in your talk.
• Practice, Practice, Practice. You should rehearse your talk at least four times before you give it to the class. Rehearsing your talk has the following benefits:
  • You will discover the points in your talk where transitions are awkward, and need revising. This will make your talk more coherent.
  • You will discover what is missing from your slides that you wish to state.
  • You will learn how long your talk is and whether it should be shortened or lengthened.
  • You will reduce verbalized pauses (um's, uh's, etc.)
  • Will improve your focus on the audience since you will have to concentrate less on what you need to say next. This will improve your eye contact and audience interest.
• Answer the Questions Asked. It is often tempting to answer the questions that you think are interesting and most pressing about your work, rather than the questions actually asked by audience members. Listen to the questions asked carefully and make sure you answer the question that was asked.

Things to Avoid (Don'ts)

• Deviate from your Slides. Avoid trying to explain lengthy concepts - you don't have time for this. without the visual aid of slides. Keep the scope of your talk appropriate for your audience.
• New, Complicated Concepts. The presentations are brief and you do not have time to introduce new, lengthy concepts that were not covered in the class. If you use methods learned outside of the class, merely state what they were and why you chose to use them (a few slide bullets).
• Equations. Digesting and understanding mathematical equations takes time and familiarity with the topic. Most equations, unless they are simple and concise, should be avoided in student presentations.
• Digress. Stick to what you planned to talk about. Rehearsing your talk will help you avoid digressions.
• Use Long Sentences. Avoid using long sentences on your slides. Instead, use precise and concise bulleted statments that can be read and understood quickly and easily.
• Distracting Animations. PowerPoint now comes with many bells and whistles, sounds, and distracting animations. Avoid using these because they are distracting and detract from the ideas you are trying to get acrosss.

General Tips

• Introduce yourself at the beginning of the talk, even if the instructor has already introduced you.
• Error on the side of caution. Don't draw conclusions that aren't supported by your analysis.
• Use slide numbers to make it easier for the audience to ask questions.
• If you use images that you obtain from the web or publications, always list the source on your slides. This citation may be in a small font so that it doesn't detract from your talk.
• Use thick lines on plots.
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