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Computer Sciences Department
University of Wisconsin-Madison
April 1992; Revised January 1997
Listeners have one chance to hear your talk and can't "re-read"
when they get confused. In many situations, they have or will hear several
talks on the same day. Being clear is particularly important if the audience
can't ask questions during the talk. There are two well-know ways to communicate
your points effectively. The first is to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid).
Focus on getting one to three key points across. Think about how much you
remember from a talk last week. Second, repeat key insights: tell them
what you're going to tell them (Forecast), tell them, and tell them what
you told them (Summary).
Most audiences should be addressed in layers: some are experts in
your sub-area, some are experts in the general area, and others know little
or nothing. Who is most important to you? Can you still leave others with
something? For example, pitch the body to experts, but make the forecast
and summary accessible to all.
For conference talks, for example, I recommend two rhetorical goals:
leave your audience with a clear picture of the gist of your contribution,
and make them want to read your paper. Your presentation should not replace
your paper, but rather whet the audience appetite for it. Thus, it is commonly
useful to allude to information in the paper that can't be covered adequately
in the presentation. Below I consider goals for academic
interview talks and class presentations.
It is hard distilling work down to 20 or 30 minutes.
See David Patterson's How to Give a Bad Talk
There are two key audiences for an academic interview talk, and you have to reach both. One is the people in your sub-area, who you must impress with the depth of your contribution. The other is the rest of the department, who you must get to understand your problem, why it is important, and a hand-wave at what you did. Both audiences will evaluate how well you speak as an approximation of how well you can teach.
An algorithm:
David A. Patterson
Computer Science Division
University of California-Berkeley
Circa 1983
Ten commandments (with annotations gleaned from Patterson's talk by Mark D. Hill):
Why waste research time preparing slides? Ignore spelling, grammar
and legibility. Who cares what 50 people think?
Transparencies are expensive. If you can save five slides in each
of four talks per year, you save $7.00/year!
Do you want to continue the stereotype that engineers can't write?
Always use complete sentences, never just key words. If possible, use whole
paragraphs and read every word.
You need the suspense! Overlays are too flashy.
Be humble -- use a small font. Important people sit in front. Who
cares about the riff-raff?
Flagrant use of color indicates uncareful research. It's also unfair
to emphasize some words over others.
Confucius says ``A picture = 10K words,'' but Dijkstra says
``Pictures are for weak minds.'' Who are you going to believe? Wisdom
from the ages or the person who first counted goto's?
You should avert eyes to show respect. Blocking screen can also
add mystery.
You prepared the slides; people came for your whole talk; so just
talk faster. Skip your summary and conclusions if necessary.
Why waste research time practicing a talk? It could take several
hours out of your two years of research. How can you appear spontaneous
if you practice? If you do practice, argue with any suggestions you get
and make sure your talk is longer than the time you have to present it.
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