Michael Alley (Penn State) 1: Rethinking Scientific Presentations: The Assertion-Evidence Approach

Summary

This video script emphasizes the importance of effective presentation skills for research scientists, focusing on the pivotal role of slides in conveying complex information. It critiques common PowerPoint pitfalls such as excessive text and clutter, and introduces the 'assertion-evidence' approach to enhance comprehension. The script advocates for visual storytelling, clear messaging, and the use of templates to avoid cognitive overload, ultimately aiming to make scientific presentations more impactful and memorable.

Takeaways

• 🕒 The significance of effective presentation time is emphasized, especially for research scientists who spend more time in the lab than presenting their work.
• 📑 Slides are crucial for the success or failure of scientific presentations, often making a more significant impact than people realize.
• 📈 The importance of making decisions about what to include and exclude from slides, and how to emphasize or de-emphasize certain points through visual and spoken presentation.
• 🔄 The 'death by PowerPoint' rhythm, where presenters constantly turn between reading slides and speaking to the audience, can negatively affect the presentation.
• 🎨 The best presenters use visual aids as a support for the audience, not as a script for themselves, speaking from their knowledge and experience.
• 🧠 Research indicates that challenging PowerPoint's defaults can significantly increase audience comprehension through a different approach to slide design.
• 🏆 Examples of successful presenters who have adopted the new approach and achieved recognition for their presentations are highlighted.
• 📝 The common problems with scientific slides include too many words, cluttered slides, and unreadable text, which can lead to cognitive overload.
• 🤔 The script prompts the audience to consider the issues they see with slides in scientific presentations and the research behind why too many words can be problematic.
• 🎯 The assertion-evidence approach to slide design is introduced as a method to improve presentations, focusing on clear messages and visual evidence rather than bullet lists.
• 🛠️ The assertion-evidence.com website is mentioned as a resource for PowerPoint templates and example presentations that follow the new approach.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the film discussed in the script?

The main focus of the film is to teach how to make scientific presentations as effective as possible, with a particular emphasis on the creation and use of slides.

Why are slides considered crucial for the success or downfall of scientific presentations?

Slides are crucial because they help convey the presenter's message and emphasize key points. Poorly designed slides can lead to cognitive overload and reduced audience comprehension.

What is the 'assertion-evidence' approach mentioned in the script?

The 'assertion-evidence' approach is a method of creating presentations where each slide starts with a clear assertion or message, followed by visual evidence to support that assertion, rather than using bullet lists.

How does the script suggest improving audience comprehension through slides?

The script suggests challenging PowerPoint's defaults and adopting the 'assertion-evidence' approach, which has been shown to increase audience comprehension significantly.

What is the cognitive overload theory as discussed in the script?

The cognitive overload theory, proposed by John Sweller, suggests that when audiences are presented with too many words, the part of the brain processing both written and spoken words can become overloaded, leading to reduced comprehension.

Why does the script criticize the use of bullet lists in presentations?

The script criticizes bullet lists because they can lead to cognitive overload by requiring the audience to process too much written information while also listening to the presenter.

What are the three main problems with slides as identified by scientists and engineers?

The three main problems are: too many words, cluttered slides that distract the audience's attention, and text on slides that is often not readable.

How does the script relate Allan Paivio's research to the design of PowerPoint slides?

The script points out that Allan Paivio's research found written and spoken words are processed in the same part of the brain. However, the creators of PowerPoint were not aware of this research, leading to defaults that promote cognitive overload.

What is the advice given in the script for creating effective presentation slides?

The advice given is to build slides on clear messages, support these messages with visual evidence, and fashion sentences on the spot to show ownership of the information, rather than relying on bullet lists.

What is the role of the sentence headline in the 'assertion-evidence' approach?

The sentence headline in the 'assertion-evidence' approach serves as a clear, concise statement of the message or assertion that the visual evidence on the slide will support. It acts as a filter for information and a safety rope for the audience.

How does the script suggest using visual evidence to support messages in presentations?

The script suggests using visual evidence such as photographs, drawings, diagrams, graphs, equations, films, or tables to support messages. This approach allows the audience to focus on the visual while listening, reducing cognitive overload.

What is the significance of the 'B' key or blank screen technique mentioned in the script?

The 'B' key or blank screen technique is used to direct the audience's full attention to the presenter when a slide is not necessary. This can help in creating a more impactful and focused presentation.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Effective Scientific Presentations: The Role of Slides

This paragraph emphasizes the importance of making presentations effective, given the limited time researchers have for public speaking compared to lab work. It highlights the role of slides in presentations and how they can impact the success or failure of a scientific talk. The speaker discusses the decisions made while creating slides, including what to include or exclude and how to emphasize points. The paragraph also touches on common issues with presentations, such as overuse of PowerPoint defaults, which can lead to a monotonous delivery and reduced audience comprehension. The effectiveness of the presentation is linked to how well the audience understands the material, and the speaker suggests that challenging PowerPoint's defaults can significantly improve audience comprehension.

05:03

🎓 Cognitive Overload in Presentations: The Science Behind It

The paragraph delves into the cognitive overload theory proposed by John Sweller, which suggests that too much information presented simultaneously in speech and text can overwhelm the audience's cognitive capacity. It discusses Allan Paivio's research indicating that both spoken and written words are processed in the same part of the brain. Sweller's experiments showed a decline in comprehension when audiences were subjected to excessive text and speech. The speaker also lists common problems with scientific presentations, such as too many words, cluttered slides, and illegible text, which contribute to poor audience understanding. The paragraph criticizes PowerPoint's defaults for not being based on cognitive research and for contributing to these issues.

10:07

🔍 Rethinking Slide Design: Challenging PowerPoint Defaults

This paragraph discusses the history of PowerPoint and how its creators were unaware of the cognitive research that suggests its defaults are not conducive to learning. The speaker points out that PowerPoint's defaults encourage the use of excessive text, clutter, and ineffective headlines, which can detract from the presentation's effectiveness. The paragraph also includes a quote from PowerPoint's creator, Robert Gaskins, questioning the widespread adoption of its default style. The speaker advocates for the reconsideration of slide usage, suggesting that slides should only be used if they actively support the presentation and help the audience understand, remember, and believe the content.

15:09

📝 Building Presentations on Messages, Not Topics

The speaker encourages researchers to construct their presentations around key messages rather than traditional topics, which often leads to a basic structure of introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The paragraph illustrates how to create a focused message for each part of the presentation, using Dr. Barbara Bekins' presentation as an example. It emphasizes the importance of developing a clear, concise sentence that captures the main point and serves as a filter for what to include in the presentation. The speaker also advises against filling slides with bullet points and instead recommends using visual evidence to support the messages being conveyed.

20:09

📚 Supporting Messages with Visual Evidence and the Assertion-Evidence Approach

This paragraph introduces the assertion-evidence approach to presentation design, advocating for the use of visual evidence over bullet lists to support messages. It discusses the cognitive benefits of processing images separately from text, as per Richard Mayer's research, and how this can enhance learning. The speaker uses Jacob Snyder's presentation as an example to demonstrate the effective use of visual evidence and the importance of storytelling in presentations. The paragraph also provides guidelines for creating effective slide headlines and emphasizes the importance of avoiding clutter and ensuring the slide design allows the audience to focus on the speaker's message.

25:10

🚀 Embracing the Assertion-Evidence Approach for Scientific Research Presentations

The final paragraph summarizes the assertion-evidence approach to scientific presentations, encouraging researchers to experiment with this method. It outlines the three principles: building talks on messages, supporting messages with visual evidence, and fashioning sentences on the spot to demonstrate ownership of the information. The speaker invites the audience to visit a website for free PowerPoint templates and example presentations to aid in adopting this approach. The paragraph concludes by expressing hope that the audience will apply these techniques to enhance their own presentations and looks forward to a follow-up film that will provide further examples and guidance.

Keywords

💡Presentation

A presentation is a formal discourse or talk to an audience, often used to share information, ideas, or research findings. In the video's context, the term emphasizes the importance of effectively communicating scientific work to an audience, whether at a conference or within an institution. The script discusses how to make presentations more effective by focusing on the content and delivery of slides.

💡Slide

A slide refers to a single, usually projected, visual component of a presentation that supports the speaker's message. The script highlights the critical role of slides in scientific presentations, noting that they can significantly impact the success or failure of conveying research due to their design and content.

💡Cognitive Overload

Cognitive overload occurs when the brain is unable to process incoming information effectively due to an excessive amount of stimuli. The script references John Sweller's research, which suggests that presenting too many words in a presentation can lead to cognitive overload, impairing the audience's comprehension.

💡Bullet Points

Bullet points are short, concise phrases or terms arranged in a list format, often used in presentations to outline key points. The script criticizes the overuse of bullet points, suggesting they can contribute to a lack of focus and clarity, and recommends using visual evidence instead.

💡Visual Evidence

Visual evidence encompasses images, diagrams, graphs, and other visual elements used to support spoken statements in a presentation. The script advocates for the use of visual evidence over bullet points to enhance audience comprehension and engagement with the presented material.

💡Assertion-Evidence Approach

The assertion-evidence approach is a presentation technique where an assertion or main point is clearly stated, followed by visual evidence that supports this point. The script introduces this approach as a more effective method for structuring presentations to increase audience understanding and retention.

💡Cluttered

Cluttered refers to a slide that is overly filled with text, images, or other elements, making it difficult for the audience to discern the main message. The script uses this term to describe a common issue with presentations where too much information competes for the audience's attention.

💡Readability

Readability in the context of presentations refers to the ease with which text and other information on a slide can be read and understood by the audience. The script points out that poor readability, such as illegible axes on a graph, can significantly reduce the effectiveness of a slide.

💡PowerPoint Defaults

PowerPoint defaults refer to the preset styles, formats, and structures that come with the PowerPoint software. The script criticizes these defaults for not being based on cognitive research and for promoting practices that can lead to ineffective presentations, such as the overuse of text and bullet points.

💡Confidence

Confidence in a presentation context refers to the speaker's self-assurance and the impression of certainty conveyed to the audience. The script suggests that by using effective presentation techniques and avoiding reliance on bullet points, a speaker can project more confidence, which in turn can enhance the audience's trust in the presented information.

💡Storytelling

Storytelling is the art of telling a story to engage an audience and make the content more relatable and memorable. The script mentions Steve Jobs as an example of a presenter who used storytelling in his presentations, treating each slide as a scene in a narrative to captivate the audience.

Highlights

The importance of making presentations effective given the limited time spent presenting compared to lab work.

The critical role of slides in the success or failure of scientific presentations.

Decision-making in slide creation: what information to include and emphasize, and what to leave out.

The negative impact of PowerPoint's defaults on presentation delivery and audience engagement.

The assertion-evidence approach to increase audience comprehension significantly.

Examples of individuals and organizations successfully using the assertion-evidence approach.

The goals of research presentations: understanding, memorability, and credibility.

The problem of too many words on slides and its cognitive overload effect.

The research of Allan Paivio and John Sweller on the processing of written and spoken words.

Common issues with slides: clutter, lack of readability, and ineffective use of space.

The historical context and evolution of PowerPoint's defaults and their impact on slide design.

The importance of phrase headlines in filtering information on slides.

Robert Gaskins' criticism of PowerPoint's default style and its widespread adoption.

The advice against using slides unless they actively support the presentation.

Steve Jobs' approach to presentations as a story, using slides effectively to enhance narrative.

Building presentations on messages rather than topics for clearer communication.

The use of visual evidence over bullet lists to support messages and reduce cognitive load.

Principles of the assertion-evidence approach: messages, visual evidence, and on-the-spot sentence formation.

The assertion-evidence.com website offering free PowerPoint templates and example presentations.

Encouragement to experiment with the assertion-evidence approach in scientific presentations.

Transcripts

As a research scientist,

think about how little time you spend presenting

against how much time you spend

working in the lab or on your computations.

You might give one presentation at a conference

for 20 minutes,

or you might give a colloquium at your institution

for 50 minutes.

The question comes:

how do you make that time as effective as possible

to represent all the work that you've done?

This film focuses on that question.

And in particular, this film pays a lot of attention

to the slides that you create for that presentation.

Now, you might ask, why?

And one thing that I have found

in my 30 years of researching scientific presentations

is that slides make more of a difference for the success

-- and I would say more often the downfall --

of scientific presentations

than people realize.

First, when you're creating slides,

you make important decisions:

what information you're going to include,

and equally important,

what information you're going to leave out.

And of that information that you include,

you also make decisions...

what am I going to emphasize,

perhaps by putting on the slide,

and what am I going to de-emphasize

by folding into your speech?

A second way that slides affect a presentation's success

occurs in the delivery.

Sadly, many presenters use PowerPoint's defaults

and spend so much of their delivery

turning, reading or paraphrasing a bullet on the slide,

turning back to the audience,

then turning, reading or paraphrasing,

then turning back.

And that rhythm

-- what a lot of people call a death by PowerPoint rhythm --

pulls down a presentation.

The best presenters, however...

they speak from what they know,

and their visual aids are in fact aids for the audience

rather than notes for them.

Yet a third way that slides

affect a presentation's success

occurs with how much the audience

understands from them.

Our research has found

that challenging PowerPoint's defaults

and using a different approach,

such as what you're gonna learn in this film,

actually increases the amount of comprehension by the audience

in a statistically significant way.

So, I've had a number of people

who have used this approach.

The woman in the upper left, Katie Kirsch...

while she was getting her PhD,

she used this approach in all her conference presentations,

and she won best presentation at the conference

three times.

The gentlemen at the bottom,

professor Are Magnus Bruaset from Simula Research Laboratory

and University of Oslo in Norway...

he uses this approach, and his colleagues use this approach,

in all their presentations

that they make to industry to present their research.

And the woman... scientist in the upper right,

Dr. Barbara Bekins from the US Geological Survey...

she had to give a lecture

to 40 different places across the country,

and she decided to use this approach

for that lecture

because so many people

were going to see her work presented in that fashion.

We've had research groups

use the assertion-evidence approach,

and what you see here on the screen

is a large gas turbine research group

at Penn State.

We've had courses adopt the approach,

and here you see a law design course

at Penn State.

And this... and the approach was used by both the professors

who taught the class

and by the students who reported on their designs.

We've even had one national organization,

the Engineering Ambassadors Network,

adopt the approach for all the presentations

that they use in high school

to recruit STEM students.

Now, one assumption that I'm going to make

in this presentation

is that the goals for your research presentations

are that they are understood,

that your presentations are remembered,

and that your presentations are believed.

I'm also gonna have another assumption

that on a personal level

you have a goal of wanting to feel

and project more confidence.

So, where do we start?

Where I would like to start is

I would like you to think about

when you watch scientific presentations

and you see the slides,

what are the biggest problems that you see with those slides?

I've asked this question

to hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world,

and the number one answer

-- and it's not even close --

is too many words.

And no doubt,

you see many examples of that weekly

in presentations that are given at conferences, in seminars,

in classrooms that are...

that include slides.

And you... and that particular problem

is not one that actually is so surprising.

In the mid-1980s, some research came out,

and that research points to why

having too many words is a problem.

So, let's say you have a speaker and you have an audience.

Now, we've known forever

that the speaker's spoken words...

those are gonna be taken in through the ears.

And if the speaker has any written words,

those are gonna be taken in through the eyes.

But it wasn't until the mid-1980s

that a Canadian psychology researcher

by the name of Allan Paivio

found that those written words and spoken words

are processed in the same part of the brain.

And another researcher,

this one from Australia, John Sweller...

he thought about Paivio's research

and he asked this question:

if written words and spoken words

are processed in the same part of the brain,

could that part of the brain become overloaded,

much as a central processing unit

can become overloaded

when it tries to do too many tasks?

And so Sweller... he did experiments.

He had one room where people just read,

one room where people just listened,

and another room where people read and listened.

And when there weren't too many words,

in the comprehension tests that he gave after those presentations,

the room where they read and listened,

they did the best.

But what he found is...

that when there were too many words projected,

that what happened is that room

that was both reading and listening

went from first to worst.

And so, Sweller came up with this theory

that if audiences try to process

too many words,

this cognitive overload occurs,

and that is what happens in many presentations.

Now, scientists and engineers

will also talk about a couple of other problems.

I mean, they'll actually talk about a lot of problems,

but there are three that stand out.

So, too many words is number one.

A second one is that the slides are cluttered.

And by cluttered, they mean that the...

that the audience isn't sure where to look.

And so, you have a slide,

and maybe what you want to do is you want to look at a graph on the slide

because you think the graph contains the most important things...

but there's text and arrows

and other things that are impinging on that graph,

and your eye gets pulled away.

A third problem is that many people

find that much of the text on slides is not readable.

And you can see in this graph

that even though maybe you can see the curves,

what you cannot read are the axes.

And if you can't read the axis of a...

axes of a graph,

then the value of that graph plummets.

A big takeaway is that

because so many people -- something like 95% --

use PowerPoint,

that then PowerPoint's defaults become important.

And what we realize is PowerPoint

came out about the same time that Paivio

was coming out with his research.

And the two gentlemen who created that program,

Robert Gaskins, who was an entrepreneur,

and Dennis Austin, who was a computer scientist...

they were not aware of Paivio's research.

Now, they ended up, I think, doing the best they could

with the computer architecture of the day.

But a problem is that the defaults

were not based on any research.

Worse yet, and maybe the big tragedy,

is that PowerPoint's defaults have not changed significantly.

Yeah, in 2003 they changed from Times New Roman to Arial,

and in 2007 they changed from Arial typeface to Calibri,

and they threw in Microsoft's little artistic insert...

but... but nothing actually changed here.

So, one thing that I want you to realize

is that PowerPoint's defaults run counter to how people learn.

That text box in the body

that has all those nested bullets...

that leads people to create too many written words.

As John Sweller says,

it is a disaster how many words

people will put on slides.

That textbox also consumes valuable space

that could be used for images,

which makes the slides cluttered.

And then one last thing,

and something that I've been paying a lot of attention to,

is that that headline

leads scientists and engineers to write phrase headlines.

On the surface, that sounds like a good idea,

but a problem is that a phrase headline

does not filter noise.

And as you can remember

from when we first talked about why slides are important,

it's important for us to have a filter

on what to include and what not to include.

I'm gonna give you one quotation,

because we can do better.

I'm gonna give you one quotation...

and I could have chosen a lot,

but I'm gonna choose this one.

"The real mystery to me

is why PowerPoint's default style has been adopted so widely.

Why do medical researchers use the PowerPoint style

at academic conferences?

Why do engineers use the PowerPoint style

for technical discussions?

And the reason I like this quotation

as a criticism of PowerPoint

is that it was said by none other than Robert Gaskins,

the creator of PowerPoint.

I mean, if Gaskins himself

challenges the defaults,

then you should as well.

So, the question comes, what should we do?

But before we do that,

I have yet another assumption I want you to have.

And that is,

you should not have slides

if slides do not support the presentation.

In other words, if sl...

if slides do not help the audience

understand, remember, or believe the content.

And someone who was very astute

at that particular point,

and did not include slides if they weren't needed,

was Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs thought about his presentations,

in a sense, as a story,

and then each slide or blank screen...

that was a scene.

And so, if you don't need a slide,

press the B on the control panel of your...

of your computer,

or use your advancer to blank the screen,

or better yet, insert a black slide

so that then the audience knows to focus on you.

And while that focus might seem frightening at first,

that focus is important

because, as Faraday said,

for your presentation to be a success,

the audience has to believe in you.

You have to show ownership of the information.

Now, maybe you won't have a blank screen

at a conference presentation

because those are so compressed.

But in a symposium that's 50 minutes,

think about having at least one scene

where there is no slide

and you move to a part of the room

where no one typically stands.

That will command attention.

Okay, now we're ready.

So then, what should we do?

And my first piece of advice to you is,

build your talk on messages, not on topics.

Most scientists and engineers in research

build their presentations on topics:

introduction, methods, results, discussion.

You can do better than that.

So, what often happens is...

let's say you're putting together a presentation,

and you're at a particular scene

and you decide... mmm... electron acceptors,

that's what I'm gonna be talking about here.

And so you write "electron acceptors"

in your biggest typeface up at the top,

and then you write down all the things you want to say...

you write those down below.

And then, if... and you put those in this bulleted list.

And then, if there's any room,

then you include an image.

What I'm telling you here is

go back to step one and stop there.

You can do better.

Build your talk on messages.

And so, Dr. Barbara Bekins,

when she was putting together her presentation

on the effect of hydrology

on the 25-year degradation of a crude oil spill...

on this particular scene,

she thought deeply about what she wanted the audience

to walk out the door with.

And then she wrote this sentence:

a succession of electron acceptors occurs

when an aquifer becomes contaminated with oil.

And then, she took that sentence,

tightened it as much as she could,

and put that at the top of a slide.

And once she had that,

then she had a filter.

And then she created visual evidence

to support that.

And so, when you've got an oil spill

that occurs in an aerobic aquifer,

what depletes first is the oxygen.

And so, what you see here is that this oxygen...

this becomes depleted in this outer band of the plume.

And once that is depleted,

then you get these bands of other types of depletions.

You get a reduction of nitrate and manganese,

and then you get a reduction of iron,

and then there's a reduction of sulfate.

So, what she has done

is she has stated her assertion up at the top

and then supported that assertion visually.

That's principle number one.

Principle number two

is to support your messages with visual evidence

-- not a bullet list.

It could be photographs, drawings,

diagrams, graphs.

It could be an equation. It could be a film. It could be a short table.

And then what you are to do is...

by creating that, you allow the audience

to focus on the visual evidence

and then what it is you're saying.

You avoid that cognitive overload.

So, let's go back to Paivio.

And if you remember,

Paivio found that written words and spoken words...

they're processed in the same part of the brain.

But his research also found

that images are processed in a different part of the brain.

And another researcher, professor Richard Mayer

from UC Santa Barbara...

what he did is he really ran with the question of,

what is the effect of using images in a presentation?

What is the effect on the learning

that the audience has?

And so, he's done a number of experiments,

and what his big takeaway

is that people learn much more deeply

from words and relevant images

than from words alone.

So, let's take a look at an example,

and I'm gonna choose a PhD graduate student, Jacob Snyder,

who's presenting a scene from

one of his conference presentations and from his PhD defense.

And so, in this scene

he's talking about the effect of using additive manufacturing,

or 3D printing,

on some really small channels.

And so, he begins the scene

by showing a channel that is built in the vertical direction,

much as a smokestack is.

And what you can see

-- and what he points out --

is the variation that occurs in that 3D printed channel.

And then, once he has set that up,

then what he does is he shows a channel

that was built as a pipeline.

And what you see is that there's much more variation

in that particular channel,

that parts of it actually almost cave in.

And so, you might think, ohh, well, it's obvious

-- we would go with the vertical one.

Except that these channels... they are...

serve to produce heat transfer of these very hot gases.

And so, as it turns out,

having that roughness can be an asset.

And then he went on to show another channel

-- this one at 45 degrees --

and he made the point that manufacturers

could choose different angles

to balance having the overall shape that they want

with increased roughness.

Now, we've looked at an assertion-evidence slide here.

Let's take it apart.

And the slide began with the assertion headline.

Now, some of you might say,

you know, I... I bet if I had seen Jacob Snyder give that talk,

I would understand exactly what was going on

and I would not have read that sentence.

And what I would say is, fantastic.

You were on your game as a listener

and then Jacob was on his game as a speaker.

But that sentence at a conference or in a symposium...

that sentence serves as a safety rope for the audience

in case they zone out, they get tired,

they receive a text, or whatever...

that allows them to stay in the presentation.

A couple of other things about the sentence headline:

keep it to one or two lines.

If it goes more than two lines,

our focus groups find that people won't read it...

perhaps it's just too much time away from the speaker.

Capitalize it the way you would a sentence.

It's just easier for people to read a sentence

that's capitalized as a sentence.

Also, don't center it; left justify it.

It's an easier read for the audience.

And the period... do you need a period?

Because it's a standalone sentence,

a period isn't required.

However, if you hear the voice of your fifth grade teacher

to put a period there and it haunts you at night,

put the period.

It's not that big of a deal.

So, that's the sentence.

What about the visual evidence?

With the visual evidence, I'd say the big thing is to avoid clutter.

In other words, try to have the slide breathe.

And I think Jacob Snyder did a really good job here

with the positioning of the three contour plots

and not allowing them to crowd the headline.

Leave some space there -- very nice.

And one last thing is, think about how you're gonna tell the story of the scene.

So, in this case, Jacob Snyder

discussed the one contour plot

and then animated in the second one,

when he was ready and when the audience was ready,

and then animated in the third,

again when the audience was ready.

So, we've talked about two of the principles

of the assertion-evidence approach:

build your talk on messages, not on topics,

and support those messages with visual evidence

not bullet lists.

The third principle of the assertion-evidence approach

is that when you present that visual evidence

fashion sentences on the spot.

In other words, show that you own the information.

Now, many of you might be

afraid of this particular principle.

You think, oh, I don't think I can do it.

I need those bullet lists for me to know what to say.

And what I would say is, you don't.

It is your research.

If you choose visual evidence

that is from your work,

you can present it.

You don't need those bullet lists.

As a research scientist or a research engineer,

be an experimentalist.

Try this approach.

And in trying this approach,

rather than starting with PowerPoint's defaults,

go to our website -- www.assertion-evidence.com --

and download one of our PowerPoint templates.

They're free. It doesn't cost you anything.

But it's gonna save you a lot of time.

You'll also find some example presentations

by people such as Jacob Snyder and Katie Kirsch,

whom I had mentioned earlier.

So, what we've done here is that

I have shown you a different approach

to give a scientific research presentation.

And I hope that you'll be an experimentalist

and try this approach.

In a second film that's coming up,

we're going to walk through

a research presentation

-- title slide, mapping slide, the body slides, conclusion slide --

to show some best examples on what it is that you can do.

Thank you.