Giving a presentation

[Abigail]

Hi All,

I have to give a presentation on my dissertation as part of my job interview. I've never given a presentation that has been assessed or formed part of an interview so I'm unsure of how to create the right impression. I'm looking for some hints and tips on the following:

Colour of slides
Font and size
Use of graphics - should I include pictures of the actual work? I haven't taken any but it wouldn't be a problem for me to take some. Its pretty self-explanatory (put petrol on shoes, walk around, bag them up, put in oven for a few hours then run headspace analysis).
How much data/tables/graphs to include without going overboard
Anything else I should do or avoid from a viewer's perspective.


My dissertation is on the persistence of petrol of footwear, if that helps.

Thanks :)

[Perdita]

Animation is always good to use, keep the colour of the slides fairly light so that the text can easily be read. Same goes for font and size, depends on how much info you have on the slide, Verdana or Ariel is easiest on the eyes, I think.
I would include graphics as it will make it more interesting to look at rather than just text. The amount of data depends on who you give the presentation to, whether they know the subject or not, but try not to kill the audience with death by PowerPoint, the presentation is meant to support your statements. I keep my presentations quite short and then give the audience the opportunity to ask questions, if they want clarification of any points Hope this helps . :)

[Abigail]

Thanks Perdita. I don't know whether the audience are scientists or know anything about gas chromatography and headspace analysis so I'm trying to explain all the terms without being patronising. I should probably verbally preface my presentation with not knowing about the background of the audience.

[Perdita]

Any chance of you finding out about the audience before the presentation? Have you been given an allotted time for your presentation? A good thing is to give the presentation to a friend, that way you can find out how long it takes and get some feedback.

[Dazzle]

Good luck with it Abigail :)

[Abigail]

I've nearly finished it, just struggling with how to present my data. I think I'm going to go see one of my lecturers tomorrow to ask her opinion on how to do it.

[parkerman]

I give quite a lot of PowerPoint presentations myself and I would say that Perdy's advice is spot on.

Good luck with it Abigal, I hope it goes well. :)

[Siobhan]

I give quite a lot of PowerPoint presentations myself and I would say that Perdy's advice is spot on.

Good luck with it Abigal, I hope it goes well. :)

Personally, I wouldn't put in too much animation though.. it can detract from what you are saying.. images/pictures are always useful

[alan45]

Personally, I wouldn't put in too much animation though.. it can detract from what you are saying.. images/pictures are always useful

I agree about animation. Too much can detract from the presentation. Its a bit like using a lot of flash presentations on websites. Sometimes simplicity is everything.

Its the same with fonts. Use plain regular fonts that are easily readable against a balance background

[Siobhan]

A picture paints a 1000 words... Pictures are extremely useful and less text is better.. if gives you a change to talk around what you have written and everything is not crammed on to a small screen. You are present something so people won't expect to read much

As for your personally, deep breaths, engage the people by asking them a question for example, if you are doing a presentation on Conspiracy theories, open by asking " can you give me an example of this" or something along those lines.. Engage everyone in the room.. don't focus solely on one person cause it becomes a presentation just for them and the others may feel excluded. Be excited about what your presenting, this will make the people listen wanting to know more...

[Perdita]

You also want to wear something you feel comfortable in and make sure that your bra is securely fastened. A colleague told me that he was in the audience once, where the female presenter was wearing a white blouse and it was clearly visible that not all the hooks at the back were securely fastened. The audience paid more attention to see whether the bra would pop open all together than the presentation :D

[Abigail]

You also want to wear something you feel comfortable in and make sure that your bra is securely fastened. A colleague told me that he was in the audience once, where the female presenter was wearing a white blouse and it was clearly visible that not all the hooks at the back were securely fastened. The audience paid more attention to see whether the bra would pop open all together than the presentation :D

:lol: That made me chuckle. I'll avoid white shirts (prefer black anyway, looks better I think). I need to go shopping for a suit. I'd prefer to wear a skirt but my male friend said I should wear trousers to avoid any distractions from the interviewers.

Thanks everyone for your input, it really helps. I'm stuck on how to present my data. I was thinking about pie charts or graphs rather than seven tables but I'm not sure how to go about it as the data is not connected (independent measures, for those statisticians). I have a few books on stats so I'm going to look through those today. The lecturer I wanted to speak to is abroad until next week.

[Abigail]

What about the way text appears on slides? I find it really irritating as a view watching text 'fly' in one letter a minute but is it a good idea to reveal each portion of text as I go through the slide and discuss it before revealing the next bit?

[parkerman]

make sure that your bra is securely fastened. A colleague told me that he was in the audience once, where the female presenter was wearing a white blouse and it was clearly visible that not all the hooks at the back were securely fastened. The audience paid more attention to see whether the bra would pop open all together than the presentation :D

Sounds good to me! :D

[Chloe O'brien]

Use bullet points to highlight what you're presentation is on and have small cards in your hands with notes for you. Try to keep the presentation to maybe 6 slides too many slides may make then loose interest. go for light colour back ground like light blue not white as there may be people with Dyslexia who find it difficult to read of a white background.

[Abigail]

You also want to wear something you feel comfortable in and make sure that your bra is securely fastened. A colleague told me that he was in the audience once, where the female presenter was wearing a white blouse and it was clearly visible that not all the hooks at the back were securely fastened. The audience paid more attention to see whether the bra would pop open all together than the presentation :D

Did she get the job?

[alan45]

You also want to wear something you feel comfortable in and make sure that your bra is securely fastened. A colleague told me that he was in the audience once, where the female presenter was wearing a white blouse and it was clearly visible that not all the hooks at the back were securely fastened. The audience paid more attention to see whether the bra would pop open all together than the presentation :D


Judging by some of the boring presentations I have attended I would be glad of this sort of distraction.