Audience Engagement During Research Presentations

November 16, 2016

In a world full of presentations, it’s important to know how to communicate with your audience effectively. At November’s GrTS, professors and professional communicators Chuck Hawkins, Kelsey Hall and Tadd Truscott shared their tips for crafting an engaging presentation. Public Relations Specialist for the College of Engineering, Matt Jensen, also shared his thoughts about how to get the media engaged with your research.

Learn More About Posters

Learn More About Presentations

Communication Principles

Know your audience

To know your audience, you need to know their backgrounds and their skill sets. Do they have the same training you had? Are they within your field or discipline? What age group are they? Why are they attending your lecture or poster presentation? What do they have to gain by listening to you? Can they assist you at all, through funding, exposure, etc.? What is the goal of your presentation, to inform, to inspire change, to create a dialogue between communities?

A well done presentation begins with knowing your audience, and understanding personal goals surrounding the presentation.

Avoid technical terminology.

Once you know your audience, tailor your presentation directly to them. Create simple images and graphs understandable by your audience. Also, make sure your writing is clear and comprehensive.

To do this, you’ll likely have to avoid using technical language or phrasing. As you are preparing, consider these principles of communication:

  • Avoid technical phrases or acronyms.
  • Begin your presentation by stating why your research is interesting and how it will benefit those listening.
  • Give a broad overview of your research, instead of focusing on one aspect in detail.
  • Use conversational language in your address.
  • Don’t read your presentation or have it seem too programmed or forced.
  • Encourage a dialogue between yourself and the audience.
  • Talk with people and not to them.

Communicate using the familiar.

Tadd Truscott discussed how it’s important to apply academic and scientific principles to the real world. Along with explaining velocity and inertia, provide a familiar example of these things. When Dr. Truscott tries to explain how vortex shedding alters velocity vector and magnitude, he doesn’t do so with a graph. He does so with a pool and a soccer ball. He explains what he knows using what his audience knows.

Show your audience why they should care.

According to Dr. Kelsey Hall, in an effective presentation, you need to get quickly to the “so what.” Dr. Hall said you should clearly tell your audience why this matters to them. In stating why this matters to them, you could begin with an interesting fact.

For example, if researching agriculture, you could begin by stating less than 15% of the U.S. workforce is dedicated to agriculture. This matters because without greater attention to the development of agricultural systems, food production could be outsourced by 2020. This could lead to higher unemployment rates and higher taxes.

This example gets the information quickly to the audience and identifies why agriculture matters.

Types of Presentations

Oral Presentations

In an oral presentation, you will be addressing your peers, and you’ll likely have accompanying slides. When using slides, consider these tips:

  • Have white-space on your slide
  • Avoid unorthodox transitions, fonts and colors
  • Consider where you’ll be presenting
    • Is there a projector?
    • Will the projector be affected by any natural lighting within the room?
  • What format is your presentation in?
    • Is that format compatible with the technology available?

Using the above tips will help you establish the basis for an excellent presentation.

Poster Presentations

One of the main ways poster presentations differ from oral presentations is when presenting a poster you have to find an audience before you engage them. Dr. Hawkins used the term “poster-surfing” to articulate the idea of conference attendees walking up and down an aisle of posters, seeing if any catch their eye. So, how do you attract your peers to your poster? Here are Dr. Hawkins’ tips:

  • Have an engaging title, which clearly defines what your research is
  • Make your poster readable by utilizing white space and using font size and color strategically
  • Keep graphs simple
  • Use images sparingly, and for emphasis
  • Engage peers, instead of waiting for them to come to you
    • Dr. Hawkins recommends using an opening line such as, “Hi, can I walk you through my study?”

At the presentation, one student asked if there’s value in breaking the typical poster mold. In response to the question, Tadd Truscott said it’s important to know the standards your discipline adheres to, and once you are very comfortable and familiar with those standards, you can intentionally deviate and will be respected for it.

Interview Tips

Through the course of your career, you may be approached by a journalist interested in your work. If that happens, Dr. Hawkins recommends remembering these principles:

  • Ask for the interview questions in advance.
  • This gives you time to contemplate the question, formulate a response, and hopefully avoid filler words and phrases such as “um,” “ah” and “you know.”
  • Use conversational language and avoid technical terms and acronyms
  • Respect the journalist and their profession, as they respect yours. Journalists are people and are not trying to trip you up.

Public Relations Specialist for the College of Engineering, Matt Jensen, added his thoughts, and said it’s important to make things easy for the journalist.

If you want your research to be picked up by local newspapers or discipline specific magazines, consider taking pictures or video yourself and sending it to the journalist. You could also create a mock front-page spread, so journalists see what your story would look like on the front-page of their paper.

Jensen also recommended students discuss their research with their college’s PR representative. Collaborating with a PR representative before an abstract gets published or a grant gets funded can allow you both to collaborate on the story you want to tell.

If a news story is published about your research, Dr. Truscott said you have to be prepared to handle the criticism that will inevitably follow. Not everyone thinks your research is as cool as you do, and that’s okay. It’s important to not take negative press too seriously.

Poster Presentations

An elevator pitch is a 30-90 second prepared message about your research. An elevator pitch can be given to a co-worker, boss, friend or fellow attendee at a professional conference. To make the elevator pitch an effective tool, write many versions of varying length.

Dr. Hall said to write the longest one first and work backwards. Write your 90 second speech. Then, condense to make a 60 second speech and then a 30 second one.

Creating multiple elevator pitches allows you to understand the principle better, and it encourages you to identify key points and messages which need to get across to your audience.

Opportunities to Practice

Present to your peers

Whether giving an oral presentation, a poster presentation, interviewing with a journalist, or making an elevator pitch, it’s important to practice communicating your research before actually doing so.

Practice by presenting to your roommates, your friends, your family, your advisor or your lab mates. Ask them for feedback on the effectiveness of your communication. Ask them if they would be interested in learning more based on your 30-second pitch. See if they have any suggestions for improvement.

Practicing with your family and friends will help you craft a better presentation because it will allow you to try and explain your research to individuals with varying backgrounds, biases, perspectives and experiences. It will show you both the strong and weak points of your presentation, and help you feel more comfortable talking to and in front of others.

Take an acting class

Acting classes can improve your improv skills,and make you better at purposefully using hand gestures and physical composure. They can also assist you in breathing exercises, relaxation techniques and vocal inflection and tone.

To learn more about purposeful mannerisms and communication, consider taking an acting class.

Take a science communication class

USU offers many science communication courses for its students. Two of the most prominent are WATS 6400 and ADVS 6650.

WATS 6400 is a one credit class taught every spring semester by Chuck Hawkins.

ADVS 6650 is a three credit class taught fall semester of even years. This course is taught by Dr. Abby Benninghoff, of the Toxicology Department.

Neither of these courses have prerequisites.

Join ToastMasters.

Toastmasters is a collaborative effort with USU faculty and students presenting their research to each other. The group meets every 1st and 3rd Tuesday, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Nutrition & Food Science Building, room 248A.

Visit Toastmaster's if interested in attending or seeking more information.