academic scientists at work dos and don’ts of the job talk
TRANSCRIPT
Academic Scientists at
Work
Academic Scientists at Work
Dos and Don’ts of the Job Talk
Academic Scientists at
Work
Just introduced
• Thank you to the Search committee, chair, colleague or whoever invited you to come to meet the faculty
• Enjoyed meeting everyone, yada yada
• Optional – Short anecdotal story about the trip or a joke about
your research. If you are not funny, just move on to the next slide
Academic Scientists at
Work
Objectives of this slide show
• Walk you through an organization structure for a talk
• Illustrate some with font selections that are clear
• Illustrate color combinations that work, and those that Don’t
Academic Scientists at
Work
Job Talk Introduction
• General overview of problem– No undefined JARGON– Keep it simple– Why is the problem important?– What is not known?– What problem will you be addressing that will help
solve the above problem?– Background information needed to understand
project
Academic Scientists at
Work
Objectives for Today’s Talk
• List of conclusions of main research aims.
OR
• Questions leading to research aims
• Future Plans
Academic Scientists at
Work
Results Part I
• Intro to question to be answered (Maybe from list)
• Methodology used
• Experiment set up
• Results and Controls
• Interpretation, Conclusions…
• Next lead in question…
Academic Scientists at
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Results part 2
• Repeat motif as in part 1
Academic Scientists at
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Optional Summary of Section
• If you have slightly disjointed results sections, sometimes it is advantageous to have a summary section along the way
• Keep it short as you have already made the conclusions
• Be prepared to take questions here, but it is best to move the talk along and not invite questions as it may derail your ability to finish the talk on time
Academic Scientists at
Work
Future Work
• This can be done in several ways.• The best is a list of aims
– Aim 1: Investigate yada, yada, yada– Aim 2: Determine if yada interacts with aday– Etc…
• Or, Organize as questions or hypotheses
Academic Scientists at
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Credit
• Advisor
• Others who did some work
• Those who supplied reagents
Academic Scientists at
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Some Fonts to consider• Sans serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica are very clean
looking. These two are very similar and it is hard to tell them apart (note the a). Many journals like their figures to be in these fonts. So use these for your figures.
• Comic Sans is very popular and gives the impression that the slides are personal - one of my favorites. Comic Sans looks horrible in figures and should be used only for titles and text slides.
• Times / Times Roman is very tight but is not as clean on slides.
Academic Scientists at
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Size of letters• Bigger is better (32)• But it doesn’t have to be too big• View your slides from the back of a regular conference room• This is 28 Arial• This is 24 Arial• This is 18 Arial and is close to the limit that can be read. Also, if you use this size in your text, you
may already have too much on the slide.
Figures may have smaller characters but if the numbers are important they should be large enough to see. 12 point is clear but may be difficult to read. Remember clean & clear.
Academic Scientists at
Work
Good color combinations 1
• Black & White• Clear & Clean• Effective but Boring• A white background allows you to use many colors,
but they have to be dark to project well.• Bright Blues, Reds, and Orange are visible but are
not as appealing as others • Darkening the colors helps: Dark Blue, Dark Red,
Maroon,Teal, or Brown’s stand out nicely • Yellows, Pinks, light blues, and greens don’t work
well
Academic Scientists at
Work
Colors that do not work on Blue Backgrounds
• Do not choose Black• Do not choose Red - you can see it on your screen
but not in the room• This blue works on the computer but not in the room• Greens don’t work that well either and are just ugly.• The major problem is that these colors do not offer
the appropriate level of contrast
Academic Scientists at
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Colors that do not work on a Black background
• Blue on Black is tough to see• Red - you can see it on your screen but not in the
room• The major problem is that these colors do not offer
the appropriate contrast when projected because of the ambient light and the contrast capacity of the projector
• This may now seem obvious, but count the number of slides at the next meeting that use red on blue or black. OK, enough already!
• Browns almost work, but need to be lighter
Academic Scientists at
Work
Colors that work on Blue Backgrounds
• Whites over the best contrast here.
• Yellow will also work. If you can pale it down a bit, its better.
• Very Light Blue will also work.
• Orange may work but needs to be light.
Academic Scientists at
Work
Colors that work on Black Backgrounds
• Whites over the best contrast here.• Yellow will also work. If you can pale it
down a bit, its better. • Very Light Blue will also work.• Orange may work but needs to be light.• If in doubt, you may try to Bold the
lettering to help it stand out.
Academic Scientists at
Work
Presenting super colorful figures — fluorescent
images, etc.
Alyssa Bushey-Long
• Most fluorescent images need to be shown in a completely dark room to see the details.
• This means that you can’t have white surrounding the image or it will make it difficult for your eyes to see.
• So the slide background must be black (preferred) or blue.
Academic Scientists at
Work
Presenting super colorful figures — fluorescent
images, etc.
Alyssa Bushey-Long
• Most fluorescent images need to be shown in a completely dark room to see the details.
• This means that you can’t have white surrounding the image or it will make it difficult for your eyes to see.
• So the slide background must be black (preferred) or blue.
• The background also makes the slide blend in very nicely here.
Academic Scientists at
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Putting graphs on a dark background
• Keep the colors light as in the top panel
• Some like to put a white background around the figure to help it out.
• Note thin lines on bottom graph - these should be thicker.