What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois1One of our goals for this class is not only to teach you how to present good talks, but also how to listen to them. 7 Jan 20152The speaker at a conference or seminar is not there to tell the audience everything that is in his or her paper. The goal is to get audience members interested enough and fluent enough in the topic so that they want to look up the paper and read it!Every speaker must, however, give the audience one or two important ideas to take with them when the leave the lecture room.What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20153A good communicator recognizes the three major constraints on speake rs and plans his talk with them in mind:1. Who is the audience? What is their level of expertise? How motivated are they to listen? What is likely to confuse or bore them? 2. What is the purpose of the talk? To present new results? To inform? To solicit feedback on a new idea? To entertain? To get a job? 3. How much time has been allotted? It takes about 5–7 minutes to adequately motivate, explain, and summarize one main point in an oral talk. A speaker cannot cover six main points in a 10‐min. APS‐style presentation, no matter how fast he talks. As you listen to a talk, ask yourself how well the speaker planned for these three constraints. What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20154Unlike printed materials, where we can flip back and reread something if we need to understand it before proceeding, we cannot “rewind” an oral talk. Good speakers anticipate this need and tell you the important points more than once.Common advice to speakers is to tell the audience your important points three times:1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them (preview).2. Tell them (body of the talk).3. Tell them what you told them (summary at the end).Take it from a mother, telling somebody something important thre e times is notoverkill. What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20155What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 2015Every aspect of a talk should be evaluated in light of the overarching goal for giving the talk: How well does this aspect (the title, the appearance of the slides, the structure of the talk, the language, the figures, the summary) help my audience understand the important points that I’m trying to communicate? 6Most people remember images much longer and more clearly than they remember words. Every illustration shown in a talk should be directly related to one of the speaker’s important points and should explain, amplify, or clarify it. Not all figures are created equal, however. The two top figures in this slide convey zero useful information (other than that the speaker apparently has access to a lot of very expensive stainless steel). N.B. These figures were not taken from a scientific talk, and they are presented out of context here simply as examples of what not to use in a talk. If somebody else’s figure has been used, the speaker should at a minimum give credit for it and perhaps provide a URL or bibliographic ref erence for where the original may be found. Another tip for ALL figures—a photograph or drawing of something should include some sort of visual clue to its scale. The audience may have no idea if the apparatus shown below is 50‐cm long or 50‐m long from just looking at this image.What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20157The example on the left shows how a plot can quickly show a trend or reveal an underlying relationship. The actual numerical data are not as important as the slope of the line. Note also that this plot has axis labels and tick marks that are large enough to be seen by somebody sitting in the back row. The example on the right shows how tabular data can be presented in a form that people listening to a talk can immediately process. Highlighting the relevant line conveys the main idea—that Illinois was ranked far down the list. The audience probably doesn’t care that Illinois’s score was 4.66 and Harvard’s was 4.91; they care that Illinois is ranked toward the bottom of its peers, and its percent of women was in single digits. (We’ve improved since 1998.) What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20158Equations should not be sprinkled thoughtlessly through talks; they should be used only when they’re essential to understanding one of the speaker’s key points. It’s often helpful to substitute words for blocks of standard terms in equations; words are usually easier for the audience to process. Here’s an example:Γ  (phase space)  MijWhat makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 20159The speaker should provide a summary slide that recaps key points and cues the audience that the Q&A is about to start. The summary slide should help people review what they’ve learned and remind them of questions they want to ask.What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 201510Learning how to handle questions is an important skill for all speakers. Later on in this class we’ll explore strategies for you to use to master questions. What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 201511What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 2015Did the speaker have any annoying mannerisms that made it hard for you to pay attention? Make note of them and resolve to correct your own bad habits. 12What makes a good talk? Celia M. Elliott, Dept of PhysicsCopyright © 2015The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois7 Jan 2015Download the “URS_Review” document to use for your review . See the