Myths About Giving Presentations: Never Apologize for a Bad Slide

We've all heard or read advice about how to give presentations, or more specifically, how not to screw up in front of your peers. It's sometimes worthwhile, however, to revisit sage advice to see if it is really germane or if it needs some clarification or modification.

One recommendation I often hear is, "Never apologize for a bad slide." Yet many of my colleagues seem not to have ever heard this one. They continue to put up slides with long tables filled with data in font so small that it's impossible to read even from the front row. These presenters apologize for the busy slide, then say that they just want to point out one or two data points and that the audience should just ignore the rest.

Well then why not just create a slide with those one or two important data points in large font? It's easy enough in PowerPoint. The audience will be able to read the values and can concentrate on them. Better yet, add a graphic or photo that emphasizes the relevance of those data to the point you are trying to make. See the following example.

Much more effective than a dense table. So why do people persist in presenting bad slides? Part of the reason is sheer laziness. They cut and paste the table, graph, or diagram from one of their papers (or someone else's paper). They think that to do anything else requires more time and effort (which is usually not true). The other reason is that they collected all those other data and so must show it....right? Wrong. The audience will be aware of the effort you went to to get to that key data point. Showing extraneous data has the opposite effect of annoying, rather than enlightening your audience.

Showing a slide that is impossible to read or understand is also insulting to the audience. It sends a clear message that you don't care about them. And if you apologize, it means that you are well aware of the poor quality of the slide but didn't care enough about the audience to fix it.

The advice about never apologizing for a bad slide suggests that it's OK to use bad slides as long as you don't acknowledge it. Actually, most of us realize that this advice means never use a bad slide. No slide is better than a bad slide. However, it's easy for novices to misinterpret this advice....which is why I bring it up. I should mention here that using tables and complicated graphs or diagrams in posters is OK (because the viewer has the time to digest them and likely wants to see the data), but you should still design them well so that your point is clearly made.

I would amend this recommendation to be, "You should never HAVE to apologize for a bad slide. If, while practicing your presentation, you find yourself saying, "Now, I realize you can't see the data on this slide, but I just want you to focus on this number...", delete that slide and create a new one. Your audience will thank you.

Using Minimalism to Promote Women in Science

Here's a nice idea to celebrate women in science:  minimalist posters.

The six examples you see to the right were done by Hydrogene to highlight several pioneering women in science:  Marie Curie (physicist & chemist who won 2 Nobel Prizes for work on radioactivity), Rachel Carson (marine biologist and author of Silent Spring, which kickstarted the environmental movement), Sally Ride (astrophysicist and first American female in space), Grace Hopper (computer scientist who pioneered programming language), Rosalind Franklin (biophysicist whose work laid the foundation for understanding the structure of DNA), and Jane Goodall (primatologist who did ground-breaking work with chimpanzees).

The concept of minimalism is used mostly in art and music to convey the essence of a subject.  All extraneous and distracting aspects are eliminated, leading to the core identifying elements.  It's a concept that I find to be appealing and highly effective in conveying an abstract idea, or in this case, pioneering women and their contributions to science. Some might argue that it is overly simplistic and fails to capture the complexity of these women and their contributions. However, there are other works (their publications, biographies, etc.) that accomplish those things.

What these minimalist posters do is capture the imagination of the viewer who then wonders who these women are and why their names are associated with these striking images.  Perhaps the viewer becomes curious and looks for more information about the less familiar ones.  For example, the image of a moth on the Grace Hopper poster refers to the story about how she coined the term "debugging" to describe fixing computer glitches after a real moth was removed from the innards of a malfunctioning computer (see this bio for a picture of the log entry with the actual moth taped to the page and the accompanying log entry, "First actual case of bug being found").

Of all the posters, that one is my favorite because it's the least obvious, and the link between name and image derives from a controversial story.  Apparently, there is some disagreement over whether Hopper actually coined the term "computer bug" or "debugging" in reference to computers.  You'll find several websites arguing about this point, and reading them one gets the feeling that the authors think that by discrediting this story they also discredit Hopper.  This one, for example, debunks the story but never mentions Hopper's real contributions to computer science.  Even if the intent in debunking the moth story was not to discredit Hopper, the failure to even briefly acknowledge her role as one of the first computer programmers is telling.  Whereas other blogs question the story but acknowledge (and celebrate) Hopper's work.  I did not have time to track down all the historical details, but my impression is that no one knows the real story about who coined the computer bug terminology.  Maybe Hopper didn't coin the term, but she appears to have helped spread its use by retelling the moth story.  And she certainly made other, more substantial contributions.  That's what's really important.

I'll have more to say about this general idea of minimalism in coming posts and how we might use it to promote our own science accomplishments.

Using Barcodes at Scientific Conferences

You may have noticed that some people are incorporating mobile barcodes (QR (quick response) codes) into their presentations and posters. Instead of handing out flyers or reprints that people invariably lose (or throw away) on the way home, you can insert a custom barcode on a corner of your poster, which when scanned with a smartphone, will direct the user to your website or other URL where they can access the information of interest (your profile, a reprint, a detailed method, a pdf of your poster or presentation).

This option not only saves a few trees, it leads people to other information about you and your work. The image inserted into this post is a barcode I generated at one of the websites that provides the service for free.  When scanned with a barcode scanner, this takes someone directly to this blog.

You can also download a barcode reader for your smartphone.  Then you're all set to provide a direct link on your poster to additional information about you or your work and to access similar information provided by others via barcodes on their posters. On your professional website (you have one, right?), you simply set up a page that contains the relevant information and use the page URL to generate the unique barcode.

You can also use barcodes on your business card or your CV to direct people to your website. Another use for barcodes at conferences is to direct job hunters to a website with detailed information about applying.  Instead of posting a flyer listing a long URL that people may not copy correctly, add a barcode that they can scan with their phone.  Just generate a unique code for the webpage advertising the job, fellowship, or other item of interest and add it to the flyer.

Not everyone has a smartphone, however.  To help these people out, you can use a shortened URL instead of a barcode.  Note the text just below the barcode in the above image.  This is a shortened URL that is automatically generated along with the barcode.  If you copy and paste that text into your search engine address line, it takes you to my blog.  You can also generate a short URL at sites such as Google url shortener.  Here is a short URL for my last post: http://goo.gl/arVsx.  This shortened version of the original URL (http://www.womeninwetlands.blogspot.com/2012/08/self-plagiarism.html) is much easier for someone to copy and to tweet.

Have any of you readers used barcodes yet?  If so, how have you used them?