This milestone involves:
- Creating a slide deck
- Presenting in our class meeting
- Presenting at the Spring Research Symposium
You’ve done a ton of work assembling the data and doing the analysis.
You have a set of results. Now is the time to tell the story!
Slide Deck
I would aim for ~10 slides. A rule of thumb is one slide a minute. An
easy error to make is to have too many slides; always error on the side
of brevity.
I like to think of a presentation as a story with pictures. So think
about the story you are telling and as much as possible, provide
visualizations for everything that you do. Here’s a rough guide for how
a slide deck might be constructed:
- Hook Slide: Use images from the popular press, photos of
politicians/personalities, quotes from the news to motivate why people
should pay attention. Consider using a provocative question to start
your presentation.
- Research Question: State the specific question you are addressing.
Why is the question important?
- Data Slides (~2): You spent a lot of time constructing the data set.
Motivate why your question isn’t easy to answer (i.e. you cannot just
Google the answer). Discuss the various data sources and methods you
used. Visualize! Don’t use bullet points. Instead, use diagrams to show
the various sources of data and the challenges you had.
- Research Design/Methods: A very brief summary of your research
method. To visualize, consider using a DAG or graph.
- Results (~3-4): I would avoid tables. As much as possible, present
visualizations of results. Time-series graphs, scatter plots, and event
studies are all examples of visualizing key results. The title for each
slide should convey the key takeaway from each figure.
- Concluding Slide: What is the final idea you want your audience to
leave with? This should be concise. At this stage, audience attention is
waning.
Presenting
Practice! I’ll practice a few times before presenting. Ask your
friends or roommates if they would be willing to watch you. Other things
to think about:
- Project your voice. Speak up so everyone can hear you.
- Slow down and be OK with silence.
- Minimize filler sounds like “ummmmm,”like,” “you know. . .”
- Have fun!
In Powerpoint, I will use the “notes page” and have a few bullet
points for each slide to help me remember my key points.