HOW TO PRESENT A PAPER AT A MEETING

(By Herbert Gottlieb)

1. Over 100 papers were presented at the winter meeting at Chicago. The topics varied greatly in the quality and time of pre­sentations. They ranged from gifted teaching that held the audience spellbound at the edges of their seats, to incoherent mumbling and a listless dull manner that could be tolerated only by an overcourteous audience of physics teachers.

2. With the availability of advance abstracts and concurrent ses­sions, the audience, by its very presence, expresses an interest in the topic you will present. Don't disappoint them. In preparing your pa­per for this selected audience, a small amount of extra preparation will be appreciated. Without this, only those who have a special need for the information and those who are too tired to move to another room will remain.

3. Unfortunately, not everyone is a born teacher. For many speakers a reminder calling attention to some of the basic rules of effective delivery can be helpful.

4. The first and most urgent requirement is that you have something new and relevant to say to an audience of physics teach­ers. Next, consider the steps you can take to make sure that your presentation produces the desired effect.

5. Prepare your talk in advance. Ten minutes is sufficient to present only one big idea in sufficient detail for most of the audi­ence. Those who wish more detail can get it during questioning pe­riod that follows each presentation, or can correspond with you after the meeting. At the leisurely pace of 130 words a minute, a 10 minute paper should contain no more than 1300 words. This would occupy approximately six full pages of doublespaced typing with good wide margins. If slides, overhead transparencies, or apparatus is in­cluded, limit your paper to five typewritten pages or less. Some speakers feel that if they prepare too much material, they merely need to read faster. Don't try it! You may finish your paper, but few in the audience will finish with you.

6. Rehearse the presentation. When the entire paper has been written out, edit it mercilessly to delete any unnecessary words or phrases that detract from the main idea. Then rehearse it several times using a recording device or a sympathetic listener. Niels Bohr was almost a fanatic in this respect.

7. He would not only rehearse his papers before his family and friends, but would stay up all night before each presentation, trying different approaches in delivery. His speeches were still poor, but imagine what they would have been like without these rehearsals!

8. If you find it impossible to include all of the essential detail in the allocated time, here is a trick that you can try. Leave out a whole section of your presentation, but just give enough information to get the audience interested. Then, at the end of the paper, the additional information can be worked in¹ while answering questions from the audience. If, on the other hand, the audience does not ex­press enough interest to ask questions, perhaps it is better that the material was left out.

9. Some teachers feel that a word-for-word reading of a care­fully composed paper is a poor practice since it lacks the warm per­sonal and human touch of an extemporaneous delivery. They argue that one might do better by obtaining a copy of the paper and save the expense of attending a conference where such papers are read verbatim. Others feel that extemporaneous papers should be banned because many of them rample and use up most of the ten minutes before getting started.

10. To achieve a balance between a well composed paper that is dulled by reading and an extemporaneous paper that suffers from poor planning and unnecessary repetition, try for the ideal situation. Carefully compose the paper. Then, rehearse it so well that you are able to look at the audience during the delivery and give them the feeling that the presentation is extemporaneous.

11. Always include an introduction and a summary. Even if a paper is only 10 minutes long, it is wise to spend a minute intro­ducing the topic by showing how it fits into physics teaching and another minute at the end for a summary of the main points. This is well expressed by the adage. "Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then, tell them what you told them''

12. No single style is best for everyone and it is expected that the presentation will vary with the lecturer and the topic. However, there are some archetypes to be avoided:

13. (A) The Frugal Slidemaker. His slides and transparencies are covered with the smallest typewriter print that he can find, making it possible to squeeze almost everything into one or two slides. It re­ally does not matter that the words cannot be seen beyond the first row because he reads the whole slide to the audience and tells them what they would have seen if it were visible. He never retakes a slide no matter how poor the colors are or how bad the contrast. He knows that his slides are poorly prepared but he rationalizes that he is very busy doing other things that are much more important than preparing visual aids. Once you have made the decision to include slides or over­head transparencies why not go the rest of the way and make it a truly professional job? Use large print that can be easily seen from the back of the room. Retake any photographs that are out of focus or have poor contrast. If a complicated diagram or photograph is es­sential, arrange to have a pointer available to focus attention on a detail or to help the audience follow a sequential flow.

14. (B) The Glib Mathematician. Rather than describing his contributions in a simple way that can be easily understood by the audience, he presents a long series of calculations and derivations tying them together with phrases such as, "It is well known that… and "One can readily see that...". After the first few equations, no one can follow except a few of his friends who have heard it all before and are there to give him moral support. The rest of the audience appears to be fol­lowing because they are so attentive. Each person feels that he is the only one who is having trouble and, being ashamed to admit it, puts on an act for the benefit of his nearby colleagues. They show this by asking peripheral questions at the end of the talk which completely ignore the series of equations that were presented.

15. It is especially difficult for a listener to do mental arith­metics along with a speaker. If you feel that it is essential to pre­sent unfamiliar equations and detailed calculations, duplicate them for distribution to those interested at the end of your talk. Another trick is to come prepared with blank address labels. Anyone who fills in a label is sent the details by mail after the conference.

16. (C) The Bungling Demon­strator. Because his apparatus for a simple demonstration is complex and seldom works, he makes some amateur movies or videotapes of the one time the thing behaved and shows them at the meeting. The movies are poorly planned, completely unedited, and the de­tailed operation of the apparatus is impossible to see on the small screen. The audience applauds the initiative and effort of the demon­strator, but each listener comes away firmly convinced that the demonstration is too complex and tricky to try himself in class. He also wonders whether he was wise in choosing this presentation instead of the concurrent session on teaching astrophysics with hand calculators.

17. Unless one has experience with professional cameras and lighting, it is best to show demonstrations with the actual apparatus at the meeting. This involves a considerable amount of extra effort in transporting and setting up the apparatus and in rehearsing the demonstration, but the results speak for themselves. The audience will never forget a perfectly timed and dramatic demonstration. For most demonstrations, transporting the equipment to and from the meeting is an added difficulty – but it's worth the effort.

18. Any demonstration shown at a meeting should be on a scale that is sufficiently large to be seen by the entire audience. If the apparatus is too small to be seen directly, you might try shadowgraph projection.

19. (D) The Bashful Body-Language Orator. Although his pre­pared talk proclaims enthusiasm for the topic, his body language conveys the opposite impression to the audience. He paces back and forth like a caged animal hoping to be released from captivity. He grasps the lectern tightly until his knuckles turn white and then throws both arms around it in the apparent hope that it will keep him afloat until the ten minutes are over. He sways from side to side shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he were trying to hypnotize the audience before they fall asleep. He turns his back and. talks to the screen or blackboard as if ashamed to look at the audience face to face. After writing an equation on the blackboard, he quickly erases it and writes another before the audience has a chance of discovering an error in the first equation. He grunts snorts and then adds "OK? OK!" after each sentence, perhaps be­cause he intuitively feels that all is not OK with the audience. Each sentence starts with a loud voice and then trails off until it becomes an audible mumble. Finally, in a desperate attempt to communi­cate, he holds the microphone so close to his lips that all of the p's and t’s come through like explosions, driving the listeners up the wall.

20. No one speaker is guilty of all the transgressions enumer­ated above but they are all too common at meetings. Some can be explained by inexperience but most are the result of poor habits de­veloped over many years of lecturing to students in the same man­ner. Experienced teachers have found the audio or video tape recorder an invaluable aid to see themselves in action. Once you be­come conscious of such habits they are rather easy to overcome.

21. Summarize before sitting down to write your paper think of the needs of the audience at the meeting. Start by telling how your presentation is an important contribution to their knowledge and skills. Write out the entire text incorporating appropriate visual aids, making sure that such aids meet professional standards. Practice and revise the talk until the timing fits the allocated time and the delivery leaves no doubt that you are an expert teacher. Summarize your main points and make good use of the question period that follows to clarify and provide additional details that will benefit the entire audience. Make provisions for individuals by providing handouts at the end of the paper or arranging for mail correspondence.

(From: "The Physics Teacher", November, 1978. Abridged).

TASKS

А

1. Find the reference data for the paper.

2. Translate the title of the paper and try to predict the subject of it.

3. Find the sentences in which the author identifies the main reasons for failing presentations.

4. Based on the paper, make a list of rules and requirements to follow in preparing a presentation.

5. What do you advise to do to overcome the difficulties in perception of detailed and complicated technical information by the audience?

6. Try to determine which technical means of presentation are mentioned in the paper.

7. Make a plan for the paper rendering.

8. Write an abstract and rendering of the paper.

B

a. Scan the paper and state its subject.

b. Write out the practical recommendations proposed by the author for those preparing to presenting a paper in a scientific conference.

c. Try to compress the text of the first part (paragraphs 1–12) as much as possible and retell it.

d. Having read the second part of the paper (paragraphs 13– 21), write out visual and technical means of presentation recommended for use by the author.

e. Paraphrase, modify, simplify and compress if possible the following phrases or sentences:

1. Не knows that his slides are poorly prepared but rationalizes that he is very busy doing other things that are much more impor­tant.

2. Once you have made the decision to include slides or over­head transparencies, why not go the rest of the way and make it a truly professional job?

3....arrange to have a pointer available to focus attention or to help the audience to follow a sequential flow.

4. Rather than describing his contribution in a simple way...

5. Each person puts on an act for the benefit of his nearby colleagues.

6. He makes some amateur movies or videotapes of the one time the thing behaved and shows them at the meeting.

7. Some can be explained by inexperience but most are the result of poor habits developed over manyyears of lecturing to students in the same manner.

f. Make an outline of the paper (consisting of questions).

g. Fill in the following table using the text:

ADDITIONAL TEXTS

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