How to manage a scientific talk?
Scientific talk is a presentation that many people ignore due to its specialty. So a scientific presentation is usually boring for the audience. In this article, we learn how to present a scientific speech without exhausting the audience.
Am I the right person to be a scientific public speaker?
It might be interesting for you to know that I, Payam Bahrampoor, was active in scientific presentations six years ago. I was an astronomy public speaker and had 50 presentations in that field and tens of scientific courses and classes.
So I can combine scientific talk with rhetoric and presentation skills.
What is a scientific talk?
In my opinion, scientific talk is a presentation that has been prepared to give some intel about science to professional or semiprofessional audience.
(You may have another definition for it, but in this article, we mean this kind of presentation).
Audience analysis in scientific talk
Know the audience to have a better scientific talk.
One of the essential factors in public speaking is audience analysis. If you know your audience properly, you can present better. I strongly suggest you read “How to talk to strangers?”
key techniques in scientific presentation
1- Do not only rely on the information
Information is fantastic, but it’s not enough. If we have useful info, we have to have perfect rhetoric too. Steve Jobs says:
The way your present things shows the importance of them.
Scientific public speakers care about the content more than the presentation style.
Obviously, we have to have a good speech. The most crucial point is not missing the methods to “How to attract audience attention?”
2- Creating slides
You need to know “How to make a professional PowerPoint presentation?” to attract the audience with your scientific slides. (or you can even make a good Prezi).
If we don’t know how to create attractive slides, we go for the wrong ways, and in result, we will have boring slides full of texts to which no audience pay attention. These kinds of slides have more destructive than their worth.
3- Be careful about resources
Try to find the reliable resources for your information.
You need to know that you have to use:
a- reliable sources (not Wikipedia)
b- up-to-dated ones
c- and accessible and acceptable by elders and professors.
Common mistakes of scientific public speaking
a- presenting too much content, which makes the audience confused.
b- Using a lot of specialized and hard words. (Read Grandiloquent words)
c- Lack of time management (long and tedious speech)
d- Lack of categorizing and giving priority
Practices for a scientific talk
a- Imagination
b- Practicing alone
c- Rehearse in front of a group of friends
Ask and answer
Public speakers are concerned about ask and answers in a scientific talk.
People are mostly concerned about one part of the presentation, which is when the audience ask and want an answer.
The method to answer questions on any seminar, scientific talk, or a normal one is:
a- Announce that there is going to be an “ask and answer” at the end of the seminar
b- Even if you don’t like this part, try not to be defensive about it
c- Each time someone asks a question, try to repeat it with your own words and ask: “is that what you mean?”
d- Prepare yourself for the challenging questions and have a reliable source for your answers.
