This guide is modified from the guide I made for CMU AirLab.

Getting ready for your next talk? Enjoy! Giving talks is a crucial step in communicating your work to the community and making an impact. The preparation itself is a great way to clarify the thought process. Please see the following checklist and timings for your next talks’ success. We will split it to

(1) General Timings, (2) Content, and (3) Checklist.

Tl;dr: Do a practice talk early. Know your audience.

General Timings

Practice, practice, practice. Doing practice talks early helps ease your nervousness and gives you time to gain feedback and read just your talk. Please follow the following timeline for major thesis-related talks such as qualifier, proposal, and defense.

  • 2/3 Weeks Before: Share and discuss a detailed outline with your advisor/mentor/boss. When writing the outline, write explicitly the purpose and audience of the talk, then ensure the outline matches those.
  • 1 week Before: Host a practice talk with your friends. The key is to have a reasonable draft of the overall story with the most content so others can comment on the story, where things are clear and where things are not. The graphics do not need to be perfect here. Have a 1-sentence title on the key takeaway for each slide. Note down the feedback!
  • 3 Days Before: (1) Send a recording of a practice talk to your advisor. Also, (2) share key feedback from your previous practice talk that you have revised on, and (3) share you have completed the following checklist. Share with your advisor and (if helpful) add 1-2 specific questions that you would like their feedback on.
  • 1 day Before: Go to the room you’re presenting in and check AV Ensure you know where it is and check AV (plug it into the projector and ensure that works).
  • 30 minutes Before: Go to the room and check AV with a friend and run through all the slides in the exact configuration it will be presented.
  • 10 minutes Before: Take a deep breath

Content

Think of the talk as a way to introduce your work and get others excited about it! It does not need to contain every detail of your work, but the audience should leave the talk understanding your problem and key insight. Key principles to a talk are: Please note that this may not apply to all talks, for example, a talk on many works, but general insights apply.

  1. Build an immersive world where your research lies Set up the audience with the problem you are tackling. You should excite them with why the problem is important and “show don’t tell” the nuance challenges of the problem.
  2. Make the insight easy to understand and applicable Think about the key insight (“take home message”) that made your work work. Can you present it in a way where people outside your specific problem can also achieve it.
  3. Have a single purpose, trim aggressively Know what the purpose of your talk is. When writing the talk outline, make sure you are giving it the resources (content) to deliver this purpose, and, if you’re running out of time,  trim anything extra.
  4. Hunt for feedback Do practice talks, then follow up with attendees on their feedback. Record it on a google doc.
  5. (Bonus) Have some slides for others to geek out on There is a balance between making things too high-level and too detailed. Having everything only at insight level may be too high-level. I often have a few (~2-4 slides) that goes into the key insight more technically in depth, such that others can geek out and learn things at a lower level, and also shows technical prowess.

Other excellent resources on talks:

  • Designing Effective Presentations - Excellent resource from CMU’s communication center on slide design. Key things I learned were distilling key message in slide titles.
  • How to give a great research talk -  Amazing talk by a Microsoft Research Fellow on research talk. Many many nuggets.
  • Any other good resources? Please let me know!

Checklist before a Talk

Alright, you’re almost done with your slides! Go through the following checklist taken from the CMU RI speaking qualifier rubric. Please ensure you cover ALL of them before you give your practice talk. Note: there may be some must-dos that are not yet caught by the checklist. Please let me know and I’ll add them!

20 Minutes before talk checklist

  • Can you use the projector to present your presentation?
  • Go to bathroom
  • Have water
  • Mute your notifications
  • Zoom: hide the floating meeting controls
  • Zoom: Make co-hosts in case laptop dies
  • Zoom: (if desired), press record. Start recording you talk
  • Zoom: can people on the zoom link see your screen, see and hear you?
  • Make sure to delete slide timings from practice talks
  • Test zoom+slides+going through videos

Copied from the RI Rubric

  • Organization: The student must be able to present technical material in a clear and concise manner, with a scope appropriate to the audience.
    • Did the presentation have a distinct introduction, body, and conclusion?
    • Did the presentation include an appropriate balance of introduction, background, research content, and future work?
    • Did the speaker have a coherent, memorable take-home message?
    • Did the speaker anticipate the natural questions and concerns about the nature and motivation of the work?
    • Was the technical content adequately explained?
  • Knowledge and Understanding: The student must have a good command of the material being presented and the related supporting material.
    • Was the student able to give clear explanations that went beyond the material included in the presentation?
    • Was the student able to succinctly answer questions that asked for clarification of the material presented?
    • Was the student able to answer questions about background research or topics closely related to the material presented?
  • Speaking Skill: The student should speak clearly, act maturely, and present himself or herself in a professional manner.
    • Was the speaker present and prepared to begin on time?
    • Did the speaker appear well prepared (e.g., no typos, slides in order, presentation timed correctly, etc.)?
    • Was the presentation (English and pronunciation) clear?
    • Were there any significant style deficiencies in the presentation (excessive “ums” and “uhs”, distracting gestures or fidgeting, blocking the projector).
    • Did the speaker highlight and successfully convey the take-home message?
  • AV Quality
    • Was the speaker delayed or in any way hampered by not having previously checked and understood the A/V equipment?
    • Is the smallest font used in the presentation effortlessly visible from all parts of the room?
    • Were any of the slides cluttered or difficult to read?
    • Did color schemes or visual bells and whistles on the slides distract from the presentation?
  • Audience Interaction: (more for the actual talk, good to be aware when doing practice talks) The speaker must deal with the audience in a friendly and facile manner.