Practice to Presentation seminar at University of Western Australia

I told twitter I was going to this seminar, and twitter asked me to blog it. Here’s my rough notes prettied up a bit.

Carol Newton-Smith ably chaired the session and between speakers had us do one activity:

1. Write down a presentation idea
2. Chat with the person next to you about the idea
3. Go forth and do a literature search
4. This created 30 potential conference papers in the audience

Carmel O’Sullivan: Law librarian, Edith Cowan University

Started with anecdote about her first presentation where she knew her topic very well, but discovered she didn’t really know where the knowledge gaps were in the profession. It was an opportunity for self-reflection as she did everything that you classically shouldn’t do – read the paper, spoke to fast…

Outlined 5 tips:

1. Have something to say. Read widely and know where the gaps are in the professional literature.
2. Be self reflexive. Analyse your mistakes, learn from them and try again
3. Find reasons to write professionally – practice your writing with journal aricles, etc..it’s very easy to get published, just do it.
4. Rig what you do in your practice so that it can be written up later
5. Gain skills in speaking well. Apply adult learning principles. If you are desperately nervous, robotically following the principles of good presentation (speak slowly, engage your audience, don’t read the entire paper word for word…etc) works well.

She used to have her talk written out completely, then just pared it down to the main points. She memorises her closing sentence so she finishes strongly.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE : If you have submitted a written paper serveral months before, how much of it should you cover in your presentation?

ANSWERS Paper usually is 5000 words or so, only have chance to say about 3000. OK to just pare it down and say “paper covers 5 points, I’ll just talk about 3″. What can you offer to people by being in the room with them that your written paper didn’t offer?

Paul Genoni , Curtin University

Has given 45 papers and sat through about 1600 others. Sees a good presentation as an art, not a science.

Eight tips

1. It’s OK to commence your paper with an anecdote. (He began with one about Bernard, a very experienced law librarian who sat in the front row of Paul’s first presentation and then fell asleep. A couple of weeks later, Paul discovered that Bernard had died at work of a heart attack).
2. In every audience there is going to be somebody who is going to be the next to die. (Is your paper worth them exchanging some of their last hours for?)
3. Content is everything. Your abstract is a contract with your audience. Give them what you told them they’d hear. If you do a “how we done it good” paper, ensure you broaden the application of what you did so that it is relevant to the audience. You want them to go home with 2-3 points. Less is more – don’t cram everything you know into the presentation
4. Timing is everything. You lose your audience if you go overtime. Plan for 18 minutes if it is a 20 minute presentation
5. Presentation is everything. Your presentation should fit your personality and not feel fake to the audience.
6. Preparation is more than everything. You can control content, timing and presentation and good preparation ensures you do. Try sitting in the audience of the room where you will speak.
7. No-one in the audience knows or cares how you feel. If you feel super-confident, don’t digress because you think you can take the audience with you. If you feel like you are dying on stage, don’t digress to try to win the audience back.
8. One person in every audience will fall asleep. Your obligation is to those who are still listening.

Liz Burke, University of Western Australia

Do lots of professional writing. Think about writing for scholarly journals. Practice having something to say

Often we don’t write up what we are doing professionally, then go to a conference and are surprised that something being lauded as innovative is the same thing we’ve been doing for years.

Have a network of trusted professional colleagues to bounce ideas off.