How to Give a Good Talk

Bonnie Dorr

The speaker approaches the head of the room and sits down at the table. (You can't see him/her through the heads in front of you.) S/he begins to read from a paper, speaking in a soft monotone. (You can hardly hear. Soon you're nodding off.) Sentences are long, complex, and filled with jargon. The speaker emphasizes complicated details. (You rapidly lose the thread of the talk.) With five minutes left in the session, the speaker suddenly looks at his/her watch. S/he announces -- in apparent surprise -- that s/he'll have to omit the most important points because time is running out. S/he shuffles papers, becoming flustered and confused. (You do too, if you're still awake.) S/he drones on. Fifteen minutes after the scheduled end of the talk, the host reminds the speaker to finish for the third time. The speaker trails off inconclusively and asks for questions. (Thin, polite applause finally rouses you from dreamland.) [Paul Edwards on “How to give a talk”]

What’s wrong with this picture?

Reading Sitting No visual aids Small print, busy slides No moving about Monotone Mumbling Facing downward Lost in details Running overtime No conclusion Ignoring audience

TalkStandDiagrams, graphsLarge printMoveVary pitchSpeak loudly/clearlyEye contactFocus on main pointsFinish on timeSummarize, concludeRespond to audience

What will I talk about today?

Central Messages– Giving a good talk is important!– Don’t annoy your audience!

Preparation– Where are you presenting?– Who is your audience?– What is your central message?– How are your slides put together?– How do you answer questions?

Presentation Types– oral exam or thesis defense– conference talk

Summary

Giving a Good Talk: It’s important!

More people will see your talks than will read your papers

The audience will form their impressions of you based on your talks

Early in career, treat every talk like an interview talk

Start as early as you can—no later than 1 year before your PhD

[Tamara G. Kolda, 2002]

How might I annoy my audience?

not be neat (in good order)not covet brevity (concise)not write largenot use colornot illustratenot make eye contactnot skip slides in a long talknot practice

[David Patterson, circa 1983]

Preparation

Know what your surroundings will be like: size of room, microphone, equipment, etc.

Know your audience and tune your message to that audience

Get to the point—early and oftenOrganize your slides so that they

effectively deliver your central messageAnswer questions skillfully

Where are you presenting?

Know your surroundings

Look at the hall: you want the place to be “comfortably crowded”

How many people will be there? Nature of talk changes with size of audience!– 20 people: discussion is possible– 50 people: performance is expected

Find out who has talked beforeSchedule talk for 11amMood: people reading newspapers will make you

feel bad! (Don’t allow it.)

[Patrick Winston on “How to Speak”]

Who is your audience?

Know your Audience

One of the biggest mistakes speakers make is not knowing their audience!

Will your audience include …– Specialists in your sub-field? In your field?

– Researchers in the computer/mathematical sciences

– Engineers and scientists?

– Faculty and postdoctoral researchers? Graduate students? Undergraduates?

[Tamara G. Kolda, 2002]

Delivering the central message

What did you do? Why is it important? What’s the one-sentence summary of your talk that the

audience should walk away with? Tune your message to your audience

– Symbolic knowledge improves statistical techniques for cross-language topic detection and generation of short summaries to represent foreign-language news articles

– Generation of English headlines for foreign news stories is enhanced when our algorithms use linguistic knowledge

Repeat the message over and over again throughout the talk Keep the content of the talk focused on the central message

[Tamara G. Kolda, 2002]

Slide Organization

Sample outline of a research talk: Title slide: credit to co-authors and funding agencies Up-front “carrot” (attention-getter) Outline (unless 10-15 min talk) Background material What you did

– new algorithm, theorem, proof, computational paradigm Why is it important

– numerical results– contribution

Summary and future work

[Tamara G. Kolda, 2002]

Background Material

Minimize background materialAt least 2/3 of talk should be original workIdentify those who have done related work

and spell their names correctly!Hint: People love to hear their own names.

Describe motivating applications that will later tie into your results

What you did

Emphasize your simple message repeatedlyBack it up with details of algorithm and theoryUse pictures and diagrams as much as possible in

lieu of wordy explanationKeep notation to a minimum and avoid too many

abbreviationsNever use equation numbers—repeat the

equation if necessary Illustrate your points via simple examples

How do you present an algorithm?Like this …?

Finding the largest among five integers

Or like this …?

Tables and Figures

Tables– Don’t make font too small– Use color for emphasis

Figures– Be sure axes are clearly labeled– Use color to differentiate lines– Don’t just copy verbatim out of a conference

paper!

Why is it important?

Think BIG PICTURE!Emphasize an applicationWhat makes it a hard problem?Why should people care?

Summary and Future Work

Repeat what you didRepeat why it is importantFuture work is important for recent PhDs

because it shows you are thinking beyond your thesis problem

Include contact info at the end– email, web page

Fielding Questions

Repeat the question. Talk. Demonstrate knowledge of standard problem solving. Draw a diagram. Specify an analogy. List the assumptions. List the ideas and tools that seem relevant. Respect the questioners and their questions Inevitably, someone will tell you your work has already

been done by someone else!

Oral Exam or Thesis Defense

Practice!!!! Observe and try to emulate excellent speakers Ask in advance what examiners will ask! Memorize a few key sentences. Get there early and set up! Cycle in on what you have done. Try to convey a sense of quiet confidence.

Conference talk

Title/author/affiliation (1 slide) Forecast (1 slide)Outline (1 slide)Background

– Motivation and Problem Statement (1-2 slides)– Related Work (0-1 slides)– Methods (1 slide)

Results (4-6 slides)Summary (1 slide) Future Work (0-1 slides)Backup Slides

[Mark Hill, 1992]

Academic Interview

Take a 20-minute conference talk. Expand the 5 minute intro to 20 minutes Do the rest of the conference talk, minus the summary

and future work. Add 10 minutes of deeper stuff from your thesis.Do the summary and future work from the conference

talk in a manner accessible to all. Add 10 ten minutes to survey all the other stuff you have

done (to show your breadth). Save 5 minutes for questions (to show that you are

organized).

[Mark Hill, 1992]

Take-Home Messages

Know your audienceCreate a simple message and repeat it several

timesAllow plenty of time to prepare your talkPractice!Don’t block the slides during the talkSpeak slowly, clearlyDon’t run over on timeHave fun and learn from your mistakes

Thanks goes to …

http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/acadtalk.htm http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~brd/Teaching/Giving-a-talk/giving-a-

talk.html http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~brd/Teaching/Giving-a-talk/phw.html http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html http://csmr.ca.sandia.gov/~tgkolda/abstracts/giving-a-talk-snl-2001.html