Presenting a research proposal

Presenting a research proposal is part of most Masters and Doctoral programmes and is also a considerably important skill for professional life. So sinking your teeth into your presentation skills and preparing an excellent presentation is well worth the effort. A well prepared and delivered presentation means your audience will understand your message and will be able to provide valuable feedback and ask important questions (rather than simply asking you to go through your methods again!).

Lets consider the main objectives of the presentation:

• To present your research idea to your peers, supervisors and members of the proposal committee, and to present it as a viable and worth while project
• To receive valuable feed back on methodology (before it's too late)

To achieve these you must first be successful in conveying your research idea. Herein lies the challenge, as we all know that presenting a research idea in a short time period, to people who are not intimately familiar with your area of speciality is not an easy quest. To help guide you through the development and preparation of your research proposal, I have collated a fairly comprehensive collection of tips. 

Preparing

• Have a plan B, and maybe a plan C. Use a flash drive, and having your files on Dropbox is a good move.
• If you need to run media in your presentation, then be sure you have stored the associated media files in the same folder as the PPT file, and remember that you will need to copy the whole folder onto a flash drive  to run it!
• Learn how to put powerpoint into full screen mode before you go to present, and learn how to use the keyboard or mouse to navigate back and forwards (i.e. you can simply use arrow keys, or space and back space)
• Plan your talk. The amount of planning necessary for a talk really depends on the environment, how familiar you are with the content and how comfortable you are talking in public. The downside to word-for-word talking is that most people sounds like monotonous robots when they are busy thinking about the next word, and getting one single word wrong can throw the rhythm for the whole talk off. Instead, I recommend you simply develop a good idea about the flow of information and know what the next slide is about. This approach will give you the freedom to use whatever words come to you at the time (which will sound much more genuine) and will allow for any little interruptions or diversions that may occur. Of course, you should practice your talk with a stopwatch handy to familiarise yourself with the directions you will take.

Designing the presentation:

Layout

• Your audience won't read the words on the slides AND listen to you at the same time. If this is attempted then you can be sure that the information was not received equally or clearly. You need to identify how you would like each bit of information received and design each slide or section accordingly. Presentations are all about "presenting", so try and talk through as much of your proposal as possible and do whatever you can to remove as many words from your powerpoint as you can. If you fill you slides with words then you may as well have distributed handouts and not bothered talking.
• Give your audience about 5 seconds to review the slide before you start talking (This is how long it should take to read all the words on your slide, any longer and you have too many words)
• Try writing only headings on slides, and talk through the content
• Try use slides for images, graphs, diagrams, and tables only
• Reduce your slide count as mush as possible. Any more than one slide per minute of presentation and you may be overdoing it. A good tip would be to have a slide with a consort diagram and then talk your way the various stages of your design, rather than having one slide per stage.
• Don't use a font size less that 20pt unless you must
• Have no more than two images/illustrations per slide

Readability

• Use high contrast colours only.  Black text on a white background is best and will work well in rooms and projectors that are less than ideal.
• Use a good font. Times New Roman and Arial are fonts that are very easy to read and are professional.
• Keep your sentences short. Remember it is you that will be doing the talking, so you do not need full sentences written on slides.
• Use either bold, underline or italics, not a combination of these. DONT USE FULL CAPS. Limit exclamation marks, never more that one!!!
• Use bullets for points, numbers for a list (especially if ordinal,) and letter for options.

Delivering the Presentation

• Don't sit, don't stand in front of the screen, and don't face/read off the screen. Face your audience. Talk to them and read off their expressions. I find that looking at the screen is fine as a reminder of where you are in your presentation, and also to provide guidance when explaining illustrations and graphs. Otherwise you should be focussing on connecting with the audience.
• Talk slowly! Nervous makes you talk faster than usual. It will also make any periods of silence seem long and awkward.  Abolish "umm" and "ahh" from your vocab, and insert deliberate quiet spaces in your talk (I find stopping for frequent sips of water a great way to slow things down). If you are calm then your audience will be calm, and they will be more likely to absorb the wisdom embedded in your presentation. A good tip is to take a planned pause after the first or second slide, just to help you slow down and relax.

Wrapping it up

• Answering Questions: This is an important skill to get right!
  • Ensure they have finished asking the question before you start to answer, even if it means leaving an long and awkward silence after they have finished (it will only feel awkward to you!)
  • If you don't fully understand the question then ask for it to be repeated, or repeat the question back and have it confirmed that you have understood it correctly.
  • Own up if you don't know the answer. Say "That's a great question...". You can say that you will look into it, and thank the person for brining it to your attention.
  • If a string of questions seems to drag on and digress, don't be afraid to say that you would be happy to discuss this matter afterwards, then you can open the floor to questions of a different matter.
• Know what you want out of your presentation before you start. If there is something that you are unsure about with your methodology, then this is a great opportunity to pick the minds of those more experienced for an immediate response. Use it to your advantage!
• Distribute any handouts after the presentation, not before.