PRESENTATION MATTERS It’s after lunch, you and 50 others shuffle into the dim seminar room. You have your mental list of afternoon chores ready to prioritize as soon as the speaker loses you—typically about five to 10 minutes into a talk. After all, you’re really just here for the coffee. Then something magical happens.
4 BURROUGHS WELLCOME FUND
The speaker’s voice exudes confidence and enthusiasm as she starts off with a slide of a young girl grinning wildly at a tower of cookies she has stacked. People are sitting up in their seats, wondering what could be the science behind this goofy slide. “I’m going to share with you today some of our work that shows that you can predict the impulse control of teenagers from how well they could delay the gratification of eating cookies when they were four years old.” Aha, delayed gratification! you think, but why do I care about impulse control in teens? “Now why do we care about teenagers’ impulse control?” she continues and you settle in for what you know will be a good story and informative seminar. Contrary to popular lab culture myth, giving a great scientific talk is not a natural born talent available only to a few, rare scientific story-tellers. In fact, some of the most accomplished weavers of scientific research tales started out as graduate students with shaky voices and nervous tics. They got better with time, but also with considerable and ongoing effort. As they and other up-and-coming scientists share in this article, becoming a better speaker is mostly about practicing giving talks, getting critical feedback from colleagues, and then finding another opportunity to get up and do it all over again.
COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: GIVING TALKS 5