I came to graduate school to do science. As a result, I thought most of my time would go to swirling clear liquids in flasks, reading work by other scientists, and thinking all the time. One set of skills that is passed down from scientist to scientist is presentation of your work through writing, making figures, and communication. These were skills I definitely didn’t have and really didn’t appreciate. I am here to tell you that these skills are important, and I was wrong not to develop them.

What are the things you gain from a good presentation?

1. You look like a professional.
2. Your work seems more reliable.
3. The information is easier to understand.
4. You can be proud of your work.
5. You can use the presentation or pieces of it in a job interview.

I am going to break down some of the critical aspects to specifically making a superior PowerPoint presentation from what I have learned through classes and in lab.

Cardinal Rules

• Everybody should be able to see your presentation. The font should never be less than 16 pt and the heading should be 28 pt font.
• DON’T USE COMIC SANS. It’s aggressive but comic sans is not professional. Stick to Arial or Calibri.
• Keep things consistent. The headings should all be at the same height. References should all be in the bottom right corner. If you show a picture of mitochondria that are pink in one slide, all mitochondria in other slides should be pink. Repetition and themes keep things simple for the audience so that they readily take up new information instead of wondering if there is a reason your mitochondria are now white in this next slide.
• Keep figures centered for a clean look.
• Limit the word usage on the slides. The slides are visual aids to your spoken words. Reading and listening are hard to do at the same time, so don’t let your audience miss out on your spoken words while they are reading.
• Every slide should have a heading. Every heading should be what the main point of the slide is. Too often I see people naming their slides “Results,” we know these are results but what is the main message.

Figures

• Label all your axes on your graphs. This includes a graph title. You might not need a title on the graphs in your research paper but having slides with data that talks for itself helps for an audience that is thinking and might not be able to listen.
• Again, make sure your audience can read what is on your figures, the same rules apply from the section above.
• Edit your figures. This is one that is hard for me because you want the audience to see the whole picture and understand what has taken you years to read. In reality, you need to cut extraneous information that is not germane to the story you are trying to tell so that the audience doesn’t get bogged down by useless information.
• Use red boxes, bold lettering, and animation for emphasis. Animation keeps the audience on your pace and this is especially useful on bar graphs. Explain the first bar, bring in the second to show why the result is different and so on. If one bar is the most important, put a red box around it and take your time explaining it.
• Look at senior students’ presentations. They have undergone revisions and should know the ropes to presenting and making figures. They are doing things intentionally and can give you tips and tricks of the trade.

Parts to the Presentation:

• Title slide: don’t forget your affiliations.
• Introduction slides: should be about ¼ of your presentation. Use pictures to describe the problem and what is known. Take figures from other papers and do not forget to cite them.
• Methodology slides: depending on your audience, it is sometimes appropriate to diagram out how the experiments were performed. Pictures make it easy and then the data doesn’t look so foreign. This is often underutilized and really can make a difference.
• Results slides: should be most of your presentation. Try to put them in the order of how the paper would be and not chronologically when the experiments were done.
• Conclusions slide: one wordy slide or a model. I prefer a model but sometimes there just isn’t enough information.
• Future directions slide: there is always another experiment that comes out of a story, so let them see that you have been thinking about it and you know the next steps.

In summary, aesthetics are important even in science. If you look at a slide and think it is hideous, you are not the only one. Take some time and make sure you represent how serious you are about your work.

---Donna Iadarola
Donna Iadarola is a PhD student in the College of Agriculture