Chapter 4 Part 2在线视频

English for Presentations at International Medical Conferences

Chapter Four

Visualizing and Preparing the Presentation

Part Four

Structure of a PowerPoint

An effective PowerPoint

should primarily be a well-structured one

Let's first know the structure of an academic PowerPoint

It is usually predetermined by the structure of your speech

Preparing your PowerPoint

is no less than designing and structuring your presentation

Generally

an academic PowerPoint may contain the following items

of course they may vary

according to your needs and preferences

The first is the title slide

The second is the contents slide

and then is the main body

and the main body contains introduction slide

objective slide

methodology slide

result and discussion slides

future work slide

and conclusion slide

and then is the summary slide

and acknowledgements slide

of course we may have Q&A slide

and references slide

Altogether

you need about 15-20 slides for your presentation

in an academic conference

It's quite important to know

what each slide contains and what to do

to make the slides consistent and coherent

Therefore

an analysis of each of them is quite necessary

So Let's get to know the detail of these slides

Title slide could offer you a valuable opportunity

to connect with the audience before the presentation start

The information contained in this slide

can market you and your topic

and your research to the audience

So always include the following elements in your title slide

Title of your presentation

with a subtitle if the title is unclear

Your name

Contact information

usually email address website etc

Affiliation logo

Date of the presentation

of course if space permitting

In an academic presentation

the title is usually positioned

at the center of the slide with fixed-width layouts

sometimes left-aligned

very rarely right-aligned

As to the capitalization of the title

you may have two choices

To capitalize every initial letter of the content words

nouns adjectives verbs adverbs etc

Or you can capitalize solely the initial letter

of the first word of the title

In either case

proper nouns are always capitalized

In an international conference

all capital letters

are not quite welcome for its low readability

Name of the presenter

Westerners usually put their given names before their surnames

which is different from that of Chinese

Usually we follow the western style in an international conference

However

the Chinese style is also acceptable nowadays

Since either way of writing is equally acceptable internationally

just feel safe to write your surname first

then your given name

However

when the characters in your given name and surname

number the same

either of the above writing will bring confusion

In such case

it's more advisable for you

to capitalize your surname to make distinction

Keep it in mind that

every careful writing is to help your audience know you

pay attention to you

listen to you

even remember you and your study

If the research project is done

by more than one researchers

although only one presenter will be on the stage

to make the presentation

other researchers' names

should also be placed in the title slide

But do remember

the names appear on the title slide

are the co-authors of the presentation

and only them

Contact info

usually your email address is important

especially when your study interests some of your audience

who may discuss

cooperate with or even fund you

Date of the presentation

Don't insert the date in every slide

since that information is the least important

When you want to insert the date on the title slide

be careful enough to choose the right time format

Chinese format of year-month-day

is not a wise choice in an international conference

A British format is day-month-year

a completely reversed format from Chinese one

while American format follows month-day-year

Both cardinal and ordinal number are ok to denote date

Similarly it doesn't matter

to use abbreviated or full names for months

However

once abbreviated names are applied

they are supposed to be accepted abbreviations

which may be referred to in the following table

Don't forget the period mark after each abbreviated month

Affiliation usually the name of the university lab or hospital

As the English idiom goes

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

so does the logo of where you belong to

Logo is easy to be memorized

than the name it conveys

Main Body

For a scientific speech

the main body usually contains the following aspects

Background

Objectives

Methodology Results and Discussions

Future work

Conclusions

Advanced presentations like Ted talks

may have some items missing

because Ted Talks presenters are quite skilled

at interweaving these items together

and make them a consistent "one"

instead of fragmented "several"

Their PowerPoints could achieve best effect

with only several pictures sporadic words or sentences

simplified charts or graphs

However it is advisable for beginners

to follow a clear format as listed above

and learn to perfect the making of the PowerPoint gradually

Now Let's go to the detail of each part

Background slide

A good background slide could wake your audience up

and grab their attention

Here are some suggestions for making a good background slide

Use pictures images videos audios data instead of text

to tempt your audience to listen to you

Start with a research question or topic

people are interested in or a story related

Tell the audience your findings

based on other scholars' research

Cite your resources correctly

Objective slide

Your introduction may lead naturally

to the objectives of your study

Having or having not these words on your slide

is not important

The importance is that

you need to make them clear and brief

to strike the audience's attention

To achieve this

Avoid using sentences

Use phrases or expressions instead

Parallel the text with similar structure

For example

If the first objective is nominal expression

the rest takes the same form

If particles

particles the rest so on and so forth

Use images, graphics to grasp the audience's attention

but not too many

Highlight the keys words or expressions with colors

Methodology slide

This is the main body of your presentation

since it runs through the whole process of your research

You don't have time to present every detail

of your research process

In your research

you may have several methods

pick the most influential one or several to talk

Do not cover everything

Or else

you may generalize your research process

with diagrams or flow charts

You could put a lot of information on your slide

but your talk may not cover every detail

When it comes to the point you are talking

highlight it

Results and Discussions slides

First, results

The audience will be very attentive to this part

because it announces your findings

and provides evidence for your conclusions

They turn to be highly interested in the data

you present

and some of them may question your tables, figures, diagrams

Don't include too much information

and bury the important findings

just cover key results well

You may keep to the following suggestions

Results are picked in light of their significance

generalizability reliability and validity

Do not present all the results you get

Results are organized in a way

that is easy to understand

and orderly arranged

The data and the analyses

should be presented in an orderly fashion

and the logic inherent in that order

should be made explicit

Results are presented effectively with reference to the research questions

Results should be complete

and the amount of data presented is sufficient and appropriate

Results are better shown with graphics than text

Graphics like tables graphs or figures

are used judiciously and agree with the text

Second discussions

The discussion section is not always about what you found

but what you did not find

and how you dealt with that

For this purpose

you should criticize the experiment

and be honest about

whether your design was good enough or not

If not suggest some modifications and improvements

that could be made to the design

When you present this part

you should always put your findings into the context

of the previous research that you find during your introduction

to see if your findings agree or disagree

with previous research

If your results are very different

analyze the causes of the difference

Future work

or further research slide

This slide is not a necessity

you may skip it if you find time is limited

If time is still sufficient

telling the audience about your future work

may be a good idea in order to seek collaboration

The guideline for this part is again

to be brief and concise

Conclusion slide

Once the discussion section is complete

you can move onto the next stage

wrapping up the presentation with a focused conclusion

The conclusion part is very essential

In this part you need to

Remind the audience of your most important conclusions

by stating them clearly and concisely

This part decides whether the audience

is willing to read your paper and contact you

after the conference

Sentences are preferable than phrases and expressions

Highlight the important parts

Be relevant to your research questions

Summary slide

After the talk of the main body

let's move onto the summary slide

You don't have to have a summary slide

if you have made fine concluding remarks

But the golden rule for a well-structured presentation is

Tell the audience what you'll tell them

and then tell them

and tell them what you told them

The summary slide can help you to

"tell them what you told them"

and help the audience to review

what you have talked about

and consolidate those important points

So always put the most important information

on your summary slide

You may use flow charts or diagrams

Acknowledgements slide

This may be the final part of your presentation

Acknowledgements slide is not a must in a scientific presentation

However when the research

is either supported academically by your collaborators

such as supervisors colleagues or other scholars

or financially by some funds

from the government or beneficiary companies

an acknowledgements slide is often than not employed to acknowledge

First

the corporations which funded the research

remember they may have a representative in the room

Second the individuals

who had a large part to play

in the success of the research

Thus on the acknowledgements slide you may present

the names or photos of your collaborators

Remember DON'T add titles

and the names or logos of the research sponsors

use one or the other

but not both