The LCGC Blog: So, You’re Giving Your First Talk

The last LCGC Blog I authored was about attending your first meeting (1). I mentioned therein that there is nothing inferior about presenting a poster as compared to giving a talk, and that there are even some benefits to the former as compared to the latter. However, for many of us, public speaking can be quite daunting, more so when it is followed by a period of interrogation. How does one go about preparing and presenting a scientific talk and answering questions immediately thereafter? To be certain, there is lots of good advice on the Internet on this topic, and I encourage everyone, especially but not exclusively students giving their first presentation, to consult some of these resources. Personally, I believe the best approaches are mentoring, i.e., your advisor making sure you rehearse before your group, with everyone providing you constructive feedback (though do try to rehearse at least once on your own before subjecting your group to a rehearsal), and you continuing to rehearse after; attending presentations and seminars and taking mental notes of what good speakers do–and also of what not-so-good speakers do; and caring about and respecting your audience.

However, as a follow-up to my last blog, I thought I would share some of the principles which have guided me over the course of the last few decades as a public speaker. I will emphasize now that if any of you have attended any of my talks and enjoyed them, you should note that I started out as a mediocre speaker; honestly, even that statement probably gives me too much credit. Any measure of success I have achieved in this regard has come through (1) the dedication of my Ph.D. advisor to his students and trying to teach us how to give talks; (2) the wonderful advice I’ve gotten from select senior colleagues over the years; (3) being able to see firsthand how great speakers in my field (Peter Schoenmakers, Alan Marshall, John Dorsey, to name but three) deliver their message; and (4) the respect I have for my colleagues and for audiences in general who, by attending one of my talks, are graciously giving me their most precious resource: their time. So, without further ado, a few pointers to help you prepare your first talk (or, perhaps, even your second, or third and beyond).

Respect Your Audience

As I mentioned above, I am always extremely appreciative when someone chooses to invest their time into attending one of my talks. Everyone is extremely busy, and everyone in the audience could certainly be doing something else with that time. Now, my mission is not to waste it. I approach a talk never wanting anyone to leave thinking, “That was a waste of my time. I could have been doing XXX instead.” I have been to talks where the subject matter was way over my head, but the speaker was so entertaining that they made it a truly pleasurable experience to be in the audience. That is something I continually strive for, and I encourage you to also keep this as a guiding principle.

Tell a Story

Everyone likes a good story! Craft your talk accordingly. Where to start? In this, as in other related regards (for example, when teaching at a university or teaching short courses at meetings), I have been guided for many years by a maxim from the great physicist Richard Feynman regarding teaching: “First, figure out why you want the students to learn the subject and what you want them to know, and the method will result more or less by common sense.” Ask yourself at the outset of preparing a talk: What is it that I want my audience to know? Also, why should they care about the subject and about my work? Once you’ve answered these questions, you will be well on your way to putting together a great talk.

Don’t just advance through slide after slide of results, be they figures or tables, reciting what is plotted or tabulated. Those who know me know I’ve equated giving a talk with both riding a horse and with dancing (though not with dancing with a horse, which I think can be advised against). I rode when I was young; no formal training, just by doing it. My father had grown up on a farm and, for a time, he and his brother-in-law, my uncle, owned a farm, so my dad and I would go for long rides together. One quickly learns that you either make the horse go a certain way, or the horse will take you wherever it wants. Dancing is similar, in a way (at least things like ballroom and Latin dancing, both of which I enjoy); someone must lead. From time to time, I would help teach ballroom dancing during my time in graduate school. In male/female couples dancing, it is the male who is supposed to lead. But, if he doesn’t, I can assure you his partner will take over and lead, much to his consternation and usually ending in confusion for both parties involved. When you give a talk, you can lead your data and results along the path of a story, or you can be led by them and follow blindly. The former scenario is the backbone of an interesting talk. The latter is nothing more than a verbally delivered report–with all the excitement that connotes.

Know Your Audience

You will hear this advice a lot. What is meant by it? Continuing with the above train of thought, it’s basically knowing to whom you should tell what type of story. Allow me to explain by way of semi-generic example. I work in the field of macromolecular separation science. Oftentimes, those macromolecules are polysaccharides. There are various ways I can present my results, depending on my audience. Analytical chemists in general, particularly separation scientists, might care more about the methods I used (e.g., hydrodynamic chromatography, light scattering), how these techniques work, and so on. Carbohydrate chemists might care more about what I can tell them about pullulan, dextran, alternan, or whichever polysaccharide(s) I examined, while caring less so about the experimental details of how that information was obtained. Polymer scientists could likely care less about particular polysaccharides but are likely more interested in how I used my analytical methods, applied to those biopolymers, to determine things like persistence length, characteristic ratio, or long-chain branching distribution. The same experiments and set of results can thus form the basis of three different types of talks. So, craft your talk around your audience. Giving the exact same talk to these three audiences, analytical, carbohydrate, and polymer scientists, is a surefire recipe for disappointing at least two-thirds of them. And trust me on this: people remember, and avoid, a bad speaker (I’ve seen this maxim apply even to Nobel laureates). The good news is that the opposite is also true: if you give a good talk, people will remember you for it, even if they forget what it was you spoke about.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

Much like the answer to the question “What is the most important thing in real estate?,” the above answers the same question as applied to giving a presentation. I cannot overstate the importance of preparation. Don’t ever go into a talk thinking you’re going to “wing it” or that you know your subject so well you don’t have to prepare. What do I mean by “preparation”? Well, a few things. First, know your subject. Know the details as well as the big picture. Know related things. Even though you may only be telling the audience a small portion of what you did, you should try to know as much as possible about the subject matter and you should definitely have mastered the details of your own experiments. Second, take time for, and have pride in, preparing your slides (another maxim worth remembering: “What is worth doing is worth doing well.”). We’ll get to that topic and spend some bites on it soon. Lastly, rehearse. I would suggest you start rehearsing at least a week or two ahead of your presentation. Besides rehearsing with your group once or twice for feedback, you may also ask some of them if they wouldn’t mind sitting in on a rehearsal. In addition, rehearse on your own. For the latter, make sure you do so at full voice (either in an empty classroom at school or at home), from start to finish (i.e., including acknowledgements), just as you expect to deliver your talk.

My wife used to ask me, after my first rehearsal, how it went. My answer was always, “It stank!” Actually, my language was a bit saltier than that. She stopped asking about my first rehearsals eventually. To this day, they still stink. That is why I rehearse! The second rehearsal gets a little better, the third somewhat better still, and so on. I tweak my slides (sometimes I change them dramatically, add some, or, more likely, cut several) and rearrange them for better narrative flow, adjust my descriptions of certain things, worry incessantly about the best way to deliver key points or the best word to describe something, so that I don’t have to use three or four less accurate words instead. I work hard at this. Nobody sees it. That’s fine. They see the end result. As the saying goes, nobody needs to know how the sausage is made. People see the end result (the sausage) and hear a well-rehearsed, yet still extemporaneous, talk. The italics are meant to emphasize that you shouldn’t memorize your talk, otherwise it will come out like a recitation. Rehearsal does not equal memorization. It means that you learn to know your message, in general and, specifically for each slide. Know key words for each slide. After that, after you know these and are comfortable with the slide progression and how your story flows, you can improvise and have some fun with you talk. We’ll return to the latter point at the end of this blog.

Time Management and the Cardinal Sin of Speaking

Your audience will forgive you many things. Being nervous as a young speaker is easily forgiven, a fact for which I remain eternally grateful. However, they will not forgive (or forget) you going over your allotted time. Do not do this–ever! Find out beforehand how much time you will have for your talk. Find out if that number includes the time for questions and answers (Q&A). If not specified (e.g., you have a slot assigned for your talk at Pittcon or an ACS meeting), assume you have five minutes less than that to speak, and then leave five minutes for Q&A. Rehearse until you don’t go over your time limit over the course of several rehearsals. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of streamlining your talk, i.e., getting rid of the “ums” and “ahs” and knowing what it is you want to say (again, without necessarily memorizing it) during each slide. Sometimes, it might involve cutting a slide or portion thereof. Sometimes, it might involve cutting out a whole portion of your talk (don’t just try to cover this by speaking faster; we’ll get to this below, during our X versus X+Y discussion); I refer to this as throwing out the scalpel and pulling out the broad sword. Do whatever you have to do to deliver a clear talk–within the given time limit. Always.

Better to Be Clear About X…

…than to have your audience be confused about X+Y. More is not necessarily better. I’ve made beautiful slides and put together what I thought were long, eloquent portions of talks, only to cut them all out during rehearsal. The talk was too long, and just cutting a little bit here and there wasn’t going to… well, cut it. Something big had to go, i.e., a whole portion of a talk (let’s call that Y). Leaving it in would have resulted in either me going over my allotted time (see “Cardinal Sin” above) or me speaking more hurriedly to include Y. The end result of leaving Y in is, inevitably, that instead of your audience emerging from your talk with a clear understanding of X, they will now be confused about both X and Y. On a positive note, I’ve pretty much always been able to use the removed slides at a later date, in a longer talk or with a different audience.

Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em…

Experienced speakers know this maxim: “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em; tell ‘em; tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” By this, it is meant that you should introduce your subject and let your audience know what it is you’re talking about and why they should care about what they are about to hear (it still amazes me how even senior researchers forget about the latter). After that, take them on a guided tour of your results, tell them your story. At the end, remind them of what you hope they have learned during the course of the talk and, again, about why they should care about it.

Some Tips on Speaking

Speak purposefully. You are, or at least should be, the authority on your subject. You need to make your audience aware of this; you need to make them trust you. Avoid terms like “sort of,” “kind of,” “like,” and the sort, especially but not exclusively at the start of your talk. Here is the start of a talk I recently attended online: “So, um, today I’m going to try to kind of tell you about how we, um, tried to solve Problem X by, like, doing, sort of, like XYZ.” From the onset, this did not inspire confidence in the speaker.

Be excited and share that excitement. If you don’t seem to be excited about your own work, the audience certainly won’t feel excited about it. This is an example of where perception is reality. Chances are that you are excited about your work. During a talk, however, you need to make that excitement palpable and contagious. How do you do this? Partly, this can be achieved by pointing out to your audience things you think are “cool” or “unusual” about the results, and by pausing before coming to an important result to let people catch up with you and then savor the announcement. Also, make sure to use your vertical voice. Let’s talk about that a little.

Use your “vertical voice.” I owe this tip to the wonderful computational chemist Frank Momany, whom I had the pleasure of getting to know during my postdoc (the coffee machine in the USDA building’s basement dispensed its precious liquid in paper cups with poker cards on the side and a hole card on the bottom. Twice a day, Frank and I would play coffee poker–winner bought the next round–and discussed all aspect of science and life). I asked Frank to please listen to the talk I was preparing for interviewing with industry, which he kindly did. Among the feedback he provided was one point which is among the best pieces of speaking advice I’ve ever received. To paraphrase, Frank said: “André, you have a loud, clear voice. Nobody is ever going to have trouble hearing you. That is your horizontal voice. What you need to work on is developing your vertical voice. This will serve to add emphasis and excitement to what you say.” Let’s look at the following sentence in two different ways: “And now I’d like to tell you about how light scattering can give you the molar mass of your sample” versus “And NOW I’d like to tell you how LIGHT SCATTERING can give you the molar mass of your sample.” Imagine changing your intonation and volume during the words “now” and “light scattering.” Do it out loud both ways and you’ll see the difference. It really helps get your audience’s attention. Don’t overdo this to where it sounds like a child is playing with the volume button on the remote, but do use your vertical voice to emphasize salient points you wish to make and to keep your audience engaged. Thank you, Frank!

Face your audience. You are not speaking to the screen–be it the computer screen or the projection screen. The screen doesn’t care about you (sorry). Look at your audience. They start the talk caring about you, at least as a speaker. Make sure they still do by the end of the talk.

Introduce figures and their axes. Nobody I’ve known did this better than my former Florida State colleague, John Dorsey. Every time he put up a slide with a figure, he would tell the audience what the figure was about and what was being plotted on each axis. I heard positive comments from fellow audience members about this many times during his talks. I’ve tried to emulate it in my own talks, though I admit it is an ongoing struggle.

Don’t argue with feedback. If someone tells you during a rehearsal that something in your talk isn’t clear, don’t argue with them about why it is or should be clear. Find a way to change it or to expand it so that it becomes clear. If possible, ask the same person to listen to the new version. Pay attention to their new feedback (lather, rinse, repeat).

Dress professionally. Yes, this isn’t a speaking tip, but do make the effort. Personally, I think it is a sign of respect to your audience to dress professionally for a talk. For men, this does not necessarily mean wearing a suit and tie (though I would rarely advise against these). For everyone, I’d suggest that jeans, shorts, flip flops, sneakers, T-shirts, and related are probably not considered professional attire. Obviously, if the airline has lost/delayed your luggage (unimaginable as this scenario may be) and all you have by way of clothing is what you traveled in, c’est la vie. It may even provide the opportunity for a good introductory bon mot.

Bring Back-Ups of Your Presentation

Always have back-ups of your presentation readily available at the moment of your talk. If you plug the memory stick with your presentation into your session’s computer and the stick doesn’t work (I’ve had this happen, so I know wherefrom I speak), have another stick on you to try. A good idea is to also to e-mail yourself a copy of your presentation or to upload it to “the cloud” in a manner which you can access via your cellphone at the session.

You can present in casual dress (more on that later) and with less-than-optimal grooming if the airline loses your luggage. You cannot present without your presentation.

Some Tips on Slides

Large fonts, clear figures, short points (i.e., no paragraphs). Nobody in the history of audience members has ever complained about being able to read a slide too well. By which I mean, make sure to use large fonts so that folks in the back of the room will be able to read your slide (this includes tables). Make sure your figures are large enough so that everyone will be able to discern what is being plotted and to see the data. Keep your bullet points short, i.e., no paragraphs (don’t cut-and-paste a paragraph from the paper you are currently working on with your advisor, no matter how beautifully Joycean you think the prose is). Use white space wisely and generously to separate bullet points, equations, etc. to not make your slides overcluttered, thus making the latter easily readable by your audience. Also, with equations, please define all terms, don’t just assume everyone will know what ¶n/¶c, kB, P, z, etc. mean.

What is this slide about? Slides should have titles. If an audience member was momentarily distracted when you advanced to the current slide, that person should be able to look up, see the title at the top of the slide, and know what it is you are currently discussing.

Animations should have a purpose. As someone who almost never uses animations, I remain in awe of those who use them purposefully and well (the name of my former student, Imad Haidar Ahmad, immediately comes to mind here as someone who excels at this). However, more often than not, I see animations as just being there because the speaker thought it would be cool to have an animation. The animation then ends up being more distracting than instructive. As with everything else in a slide and a presentation, animations should have a clear purpose and should further the audience’s understanding of whatever point you are trying to make. If the animation fails at these goals, it probably shouldn’t be there.

Attributions and thanks. If you are using someone else’s work in one of your slides, make sure to reference it. If someone provide you some type of assistance, no matter how small, would it kill you to thank them in the acknowledgements slide? In both cases, the Golden Rule applies. Also, if you thank someone for something, they are more likely to help you again!

You Finished Speaking – Now What? Q&A and The Next Talk

So, you finished speaking and now it’s time for questions. This is probably even more daunting than is presenting. But it shouldn’t be. I know you are afraid you’ll be asked a question to which you don’t know the answer. Don’t be. I used to be (very) afraid of this. Now, I know to look forward to such questions, because they provide me an opportunity to learn. Oftentimes, during the next break, the questioner and I will get together for a great discussion. Anyway, some tips on handling the Q&A.

First, repeat the question out loud, even if the questioner used a microphone. This makes sure everybody was able to hear the question, makes sure that you understood it correctly, and buys you time to think about the answer. Then, try your best to answer. Please remember that the Q&A is not the time to give an extra talk, so keep your answers as brief as possible (questioners would be wise to remember that the privilege to ask a question is not an opportunity for them to give a 5-minute talk of their own). If you don’t know the answer but have what you think is a reasonable hypothesis regarding either what the answer might be or how to find this out, state that. If you just plain don’t know, state that. There’s no shame in not knowing; to the contrary, admitting so will likely earn you some respect. Do not try to make stuff up. One or more people in the audience are going to know you are just making up an answer. This earns you no respect. Lastly, don’t let obnoxious questioners bring you down. They are only making asses of themselves in front of everyone.

During my last blog, I addressed the point of whether you should stay for talks after yours within a given session. You can read my ramblings thereon in that blog. Here, I’ll merely sum up by advising that, unless you really need to be somewhere else, have the courtesy to stay either until the end of the session or, at the very least, until the next break. Again, treat others the way you’d like them to treat you.

Have Fun!

All of the above advice was given in the spirit of helping you improve your talk, both its visuals and your delivery. What I want to finish with is for you to know that giving a talk should be fun–yes, for the audience, but also for you. It will be daunting at first, and it may not be fun for the first several talks you give, but I sincerely hope it becomes fun for you, hopefully sooner than later. Don’t be afraid to insert some humor into your talk or your slides, or to share something funny or amusing with your audience as it occurs to you during your talk. If you find a typo during delivery, you can make fun of it (“Scattering is incredibly useful, no matter how many “t’s” there are in it” Tim Lodge said at a recent ACS meeting after noticing the word was misspelled as “Scatttering” on his slide. I laughed at this comment until the next slide). Personalize your talk; make the story you are telling a reflection of you, scientifically and otherwise. People are there because they want to hear what you have to say. What a compliment! If you’ve prepared well, you’ll enjoy this fully.

Reference

(1) Striegel, A. M. The LCGC Blog: So You’re Attending Your First Meeting. What Can You Expect? MJH Life Sciences 2024. https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/lcgc-blog-attending-first-meeting-what-expect (accessed 2024-7-17)

About the Author

André M. Striegel obtained his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of New Orleans. He performed postdoctoral research at the USDA’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research and then worked for a number of years in the chemical industry, for Solutia Inc. (now Eastman Chemical). From industry he went on to Florida State University, where he was assistant professor of both analytical and materials chemistry. Since 2011, he has been at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he is currently Scientific Advisor in the Chemical Sciences Division. André is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed scientific publications, lead author of the second edition of “Modern size-exclusion liquid chromatography,” editor of the book “Multiple detection in size-exclusion chromatography,” past associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry and, since 2015, editor of Chromatographia. He has received a number of awards, including the inaugural ACS-DAC Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science, and was also inaugural Professor in Residence for Preservation Research and Testing at the US Library of Congress. His interests lie principally in the area of macromolecular separations, both fundamental and applied.