Giving Effective Presentations

1. Giving Effective Presentations Marie desJardins (mariedj@cs.umbc.edu) HONR 300 / CMSC 491 April 11, 2012

2. Sources • Robert L. Peters, Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or Ph.D. (Revised Edition). NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997. • Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science: The Art of Effective Communication, 2/e. London: Springer-Verlag, 2004. • Mark D. Hill, “Oral presentation advice” • Simon L. Peyton Jones, John Hughes, and John Launchbury, “How to give a good research talk” • Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics” • Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia”

3. Outline • Rules for presentations • General guidelines for preparing talks • Project presentation guidelines for this class • Paper presentation guidelines for this class

4. Rules for Presentations

5. Rule # 1 • Know what on earth you’re doing up there! • Rule #2: Know what you want to say • Rule #3: Know your audience • Rule #4: Know how long you have

6. Rule #2: Know What You Want to Say • Just giving a summary/recap of the research paper you wrote is not interesting to most people • You should give enough detail to get your interesting ideas and observations across (and to show that you’ve actually learned something interesting aboutthe problem you were studying), but not enough to lose your audience • They want to hear what you learned that was cool and why they should care • Preferably, they’ll hear the above two points at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk • If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask questions (or, in the future when you’re presenting a published paper, read your paper!) • Whatever you do, don’t just read your slides!

7. Rule #3: Know Your Audience • Don’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience in your field • Your fellow students already know what parallelism, chaos, and tipping points are • Even for these people, you need to be sure you’re explaining each new concept clearly • On the other hand, you’ll lose people in a general audience if you don’t give the necessary background • In any case, the most important thing is to emphasize what you’ve discovered and why they should care!

8. Rule #4: Know How Long You Have • How long is the talk? Are questions included? • A good heuristic is 1-2 minutes per slide • ...but it depends a lot on the content of those slides! • If you have too many slides, you’ll skip some or—worse—rush desperately to finish. Avoid this temptation!! • Almost by definition, you never have time to say everything about your topic, so don’t worry about skipping some things! • Unless you’re very experienced giving talks, you should practice your timing; ideally: • A couple of times on your own to get the general flow • At least one dry run to work out the kinks • A run-through on your own the night before the talk

9. Comments on Zobel / Peters • Zobel recommends one minute per slide • Unless you have very little information on each slide, this is a racing speed • Peters recommends writing out your presentation, word for word • This is a very bad idea for most people, and will lead to extremely stilted delivery • The only alternative, if you’re not an experienced public speaker, is to practice!

10. General Presentation Guidelines

11. Organizing a Talk • Talks are linear: • Your audience can’t flip back to see what you said last • They can’t use the section headers as a guideline • → Help them keep track of where you are in the talk • → Don’t try to cover as much ground as you would in a research paper • Give an overview (& use it throughout) • Start with a slide or two on key ideas/contributions • Give a high-level summary (or simple example) before you dive down into (not too many) details • Recap at the end

12. Slideology 101 • Don’t just read your slides! • Use the minimum amount of text necessary • Use examples • Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format • Use color to emphasize important points, but avoidtheexcessiveuseofcolor • “Hiding” bullets like this is annoying (but sometimes effective), but… • Don’t fidget, and… • Don’t just read your slides! Abuse of animation is a cardinal sin!

13. How to Give a Bad TalkAdvice from Dave Patterson, summarized by Mark Hill • Thou shalt not be neat • Thou shalt not waste space • Thou shalt not covet brevity • Thou shalt cover thy naked slides • Thou shalt not write large • Thou shalt not use color • Thou shalt not illustrate • Thou shalt not make eye contact • Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk • Thou shalt not practice

14. Handling Questions • Questions during the talk: • If your presentation will answer the question later, say so and move on • If your presentation won’t answer the question, either: • Give a brief answer • Defer the question to the end of the talk • Know how much time you have! • Make sure you understand the question first! • Ask for clarification if you need it • Restate the question, and ask whether you’ve gotten it right • Have backup slides for questions you can anticipate (but don’t have time for in the main presentation)

15. Project Presentations

16. Project Presentations • These are short (5-minute) demos of your NetLogo project • You should not plan to use PowerPoint slides or other visuals beyond the NetLogo demonstration

17. Logistics and Content • I will have all of the models ready to run on my laptop • You may use your own laptop if you wish, but should arrive early to make sure you can quickly connect to the projector without any technical glitches • Your presentation should include: • A description of the system that you have modeled • A demonstration of how the system works • A discussion of the options/parameters that you have provided • A summary of what you discovered about your system

18. Suggested Presentation Structure • One possible structure is to spend about one minute each on these five components: • Show the interface and briefly explain the complex system you modeled • Demonstrate the basic system operation, by starting and running your model, and pointing out any key behaviors • Show a system variation by varying one of the parameters. Explain intuitively what might be expected, change the parameter, and show the new system behavior • Show the NetLogo code and briefly discuss any implementation challenges that you faced • Return to the main interface, show a final variation, and summarize your findings/conclusions

19. Paper Summary Presentations

20. Goals of Research Paper Presentations • Convey why this is an important and/or interesting problem/domain • Review key ideas that you learned in your research • Discuss modeling approaches and sources of complexity • Relate these issues to relevant course topics • Critique the work that you discovered in your research • Stimulate discussion

21. Paper Presentations • Content: You should provide a well organized presentation of the key contributions and important ideas in the paper. • If you’re in CMSC 491, you should summarize your model and findings (e.g., with screenshots and/or graphs) • Timing: You should aim for an 8-minute presentation. • This works out to (roughly) six to eight slides • As in a conference or symposium talk, you will get 2-minute and time’s-up warnings from the session chair. • I will cut you off if you go too long! • There will be a few minutes after each talk for questions

22. Paper Presentations • Audience: Your audience consists of your fellow students. (I don’t count.) • Some are in your field, some are not • Most will not know much about your particular domain • You can’t assume a lot of existing knowledge • On the other hand, you only have ten minutes! Be selective!

23. Possible Organization • (This is just a suggestion; you don’t have to use this structure!) • Title slide, followed by outline • System overview, perhaps with an illustrative picture • 1-2 slides: agents, interactions, and environment • 1-2 slides: complex behaviors of the system • Note that these slides should mention key published work • 1-2 slides: previous modeling approaches (if relevant) • (CMSC) Model design slide • (CMSC) Model behaviors slide • (CMSC) Model results slide (quantitative/qualitative) • Total: ~9 slides

24. Giving the Presentation • You must prepare your presentation in PowerPoint or as a PDF and email it to me no later than 8am on the day of your presentation • Draft slides can be sent to me for review, if you want feedback beforehand • I will only promise to review and comment on draft slides if they are sent at least 24 hours before your talk! • Practice your presentation, even if it’s just to yourself, to make sure your timing is correct

25. Grading and Feedback • Students are required to fill out a short feedback form for each presentation • You will receive these forms • I will also give you written feedback • Your grade will be based on: • Your level of preparation • The clarity of your presentation • The timing of your presentation • Other students’ evaluation of your presentation • The ensuing discussion