Giving Wonderful Psychology Talks (or another Science)

Public speaking can feel scary under any circumstance. Giving a presentation about scientific research comes with its own challenges – we have a fixed structure behind describing studies and, as scientists, we love nuance, but we have too little time to share everything. It’s hard. I am sharing some tips, especially to help new Psychology graduate students find self-confidence and concretely use cliché advice to, “know your audience.”

You have so much to say, how do you decide what to actually say? Remember it’s okay not to share everything. Especially with shorter talks (15min), people expect you’re not sharing every methodological detail and every analysis. Details can be something for questions and answers later. Instead, focus on telling a clear and engaging story.Just like good fiction has an arc with a build up to a climax and finally resolution, so does your nonfiction talk.Your introduction is a backstory, building to your method and its climax with your hypotheses. Then your results handle the conflict and bring us towards resolution with your discussion. Generally, it’s simplest beginning with the method and results, the you know what to be selective about including in your introduction and discussion.

Telling Your Story with Limited Data

What if you just aren’t far enough along with your study to share a full arc of a story? Conferences usually select presentations because you have a story, so this is a challenge when you were assigned a date in a professional seminar. Keep your date in mind and push yourself in the weeks and days leading to your presentation – do at least a rough statistical analysis with whatever data you have, do some quick coding. Why?

If you don’t have something to say at your talk, your audience won’t have much to say either.It’s just too vague. But what if you push yourself to have even a little data to discuss or multiple concrete competing methods you’re considering?During your Q&A, your audience will be able to give you deeper feedback. You show your classmates and professors you value their time and appreciate their help.

Engage with your audience.Look towards members of your audience while speaking, make eye contact, vary your voice, gestures, and body language to convey enthusiasm and punctuate key points. In contrast, do not read to your audience, do not talk to your computer or the projected slides. Enunciate clearly, avoid fillers like “um,” speak at an energetic but deliberate conversational pace. Try stepping out from behind the podium to convey you’re connected with your audience.Presence takes time to develop, so please don’t worry about doing all of this perfect. Instead try to improve a bit where you see yourself having room to grow.Ultimately, you’re engaging your audience by projecting enthusiasm and confidence.

“Be confident!” Well, that’s easy to say, but what if inside I’m saying, "How can I possibly be confident presenting in front of all of these professors, who are so critical, and who look for every possible flaw? There are flaws and mistakes everywhere in my study. It didn't work out how I planned. I wish I could start over." Please remind yourself being nervous about public speaking is natural and you’re not alone. You’re nervous because you care about doing a good job. Let’s examine and reframe some of anxious thoughts you may have.

Challenging Your Self-Doubt

“Everybody knows more than me!” Your audience may know quite a lot. Other grad students are learning a lot too, professors already have the degree you’re seeking, and your advisor has probably studied the subject matter much longer than you.It’s perfectly fine to notice how knowledgeable your audience is. But the one thing you know more than anybody else about is your study – the topic of your talk. For example, your advisor doesn’t have the direct personal interactions with participants you have and so you can respond to questions spontaneously with anecdotes nobody else could.

“I made mistakes!” Of course you did, we all do, and it’s okay. Try not to be overly-apologetic or over-explain in your limited time.Instead, acknowledge issues matter-of-factly. You might say, "Due to an equipment error data from 3 participants on the last trial was lost." Stop there. Do not tell us whose fault it was or any other details. You would just be making your mistakes feel larger than they are. When you can, frame your study positively. Shortcomings are opportunities for future research. Let’s say you’re thinking, “I can’t believe I chose a between-subject design when OBVIOUSLY within-subject would have been better.” I constantly rethink studies I conduct too. Remind yourself it’s only obvious in hindsight and noticing is helping you grow into the scientist you’re becoming. You might say in your talk, “we chose a between subject design to minimize participant fatigue and we’re designing a within-subject version so we can test this new hypothesis about individual differences.”

“But my study didn’t work!”Actually, finding evidence inconsistent with your hypothesis is your study working. The hallmark of science is falsifiability, and your results mismatching your hypothesis demonstrates you can be wrong. That’s okay. Write your talk, your story, so your results end with a cliff-hanger and your discussion sets up the sequel – new hypotheses and new studies. I like to remember Isaac Asimov saying, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science - the one that heralds new discoveries - is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it) but ‘That's funny ...’”

Simplicity is a virtue.Start by making your slides plainly, with only content. Only add elements like colors, different fonts, effects, and picture when that adding something to your presentation. A comic making a light-hearted joke you can connect with your study adds engagement so it’s worth adding. Bolding text to highlight key points helps your audience understand, so add it. Remember though, just because PowerPoint or other software can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Creating a theme across your slides, like a color pallet or a subtle watermark can create a continuity across your slides and minimize distraction. Use a single font, with possibly a second for emphasis. Vary font size to subtly convey structure. For example, I often choose Helvetica because I like it’s clean minimalist feel and it’s easily readable on screens. I use 44pt for titles, 32pt main ideas, 24pt supporting information, and 18 point references.

Your audience will naturally read whatever you put on a slide. If you put several sentences, they’ll read it instead of listening to you.Keep your slides short with ‘punchy’ text.

Regardless of your audience, whenever you can without complicating your talk, avoid jargon and define acronyms.Review everything you write and say for clarity. Does your literature review contain nuance unnecessary for understanding your study?Can you organize your data more clearly and simplify figures? Make everything clear and simple. Simplicity is a virtue.

Possibly the most cliché advice is, “know your audience.” Absolutely true. Your content, structure, and speaking style should fit your audience so they’re engaged and learn something. But how do you know what level of sophistication to use?

Drop your sophistication to one step below your audience. If you’re giving a Cognitive Psychology talk to an audience of Cognitive Psychology graduate students, target your sophistication to graduate students in any branch of Psychology. If you’re speaking to graduate students, target your sophistication to advanced undergraduate students. Why are we dropping a step down? Nobody’s education is comprehensive, and science keeps progressing, so you’re filling gaps in your audience’s knowledge. But it's worth one step down even for your most sophisticated audience members.They’re listening to your talk as a scientific argument for your hypothesis. They’re expecting you to take them through your argument step by step, and hopefully they nod along. Even an audience who knows everything relevant won’t have all their knowledge in front of their mind when you need them to.

Do not drop your sophistication two steps; that’s dumbing down, its unnecessary at best and condescending at worst. For example, let’s say you’re giving a Developmental Psychology talk to an audience of developmental psychology graduate students. Please don’t define "longitudinal study", "within-subject", and "ANOVA." Targeting your sophistication to graduate psychology students in any area means they know these concepts. But you would want to define, “microgenetic study” and “horizontal décalage” because they’re specialized Developmental concepts. Similarly, don’t tell your audience of science undergraduates, “first I’m going to introduce with a literature review, then I’ll share my method, then …” Your sophistication target is science-minded high school students and undergraduates in non-science fields. They know the format of a science paper.

Anything you say in your talk will be obvious to you because you have spent so long thinking about it. Sometimes you can feel simplistic when spelling out ideas. Be cautious not to say things like, “As all of you know …”When you do, worst case everyone agrees and saying the words didn’t add anything. But much more likely is somebody in your audience doesn’t actually know about it and you could be making them feel stupid or have a defensive reaction toward you. Nobody knows everything, even within a single branch of a single science.

Nothing matters more to giving a good talk than practicing. Practice by yourself for timing. Practice with friends or your lab for comfort and feedback. Even practicing a talk just once can dramatically improve how smoothly you speak.

When you’re able, visit the room for your talk beforehand. Test equipment works to make sure it works like you expect. Sometimes slides get messed up going from one machine to another. Sometimes clickers don’t work.

Arrive early before your talk. If there’s clutter, like a blackboard full of another meeting’s work, erase it to avoid distractions. If your projector is portable, set it up to fill the screen. Turn on and off different lights switches and look at your slides from around your room to make sure it’s clear. You’ll have extra time to review your notes, connect with arriving audience members, and relax and gather your thoughts.

When I start preparing a talk, I always have way too much material for how much time I have. But that’s okay. Seeing everything we could say helps us be intentional about how we use our time. Even so, before planning our talks, it’s helpful to remind ourselves about our timing so we don’t go so far overboard with our first draft. Think about how much time you’re given. Really given.For example, if you have a 15 minute talking block but time is taken switching speakers and speaking up, you really have maybe 13 minutes. Remember allocating time for questions. For example, imagine you’re giving a professional seminar talk during an hour and 15 minute block. Notice your department’s culture and if time is really used for casual catching up and announcements. Notice your cultures norms about question time. In my experience, pro-sem’s often expect about a quarter of the time. So maybe your real talk time is about 45 minutes. Similarly, but a totally different context, notice how long people like to listen to somebody explain their posters at conferences. To me, it’s usually about 4 minutes. Engaged people ask questions and talk with me maybe another 5 minutes.

How Much Time Do I have for Each Section?

Science talks follow a conventional format: introduction, method, results, and discussion. While it’s restraining us, it’s liberating too, because our audience just knows what to expect and we can plan timing for each section and not need to explain it to people. Maybe you feel I’m belaboring points about time. It might sound trivial, but it’s among the biggest mistakes.Have you ever been to a talk where the speaker shares an engaging nuanced introduction and suddenly realizes they need to rush, and even skip slides, about their actual study? They lost track of being mindful about how much time their introduction should have been. When practicing, use a timer to check how long you’re speaking for each section.

I recommend giving about 17% of your time to your introduction, 37% to method, 37% to results, and 9% to discussion (table 1). Please don’t make a rigid rule. It’s a starting point. Maybe you feel your discussion of implications is especially important, so you might add more time to your discussion and take from elsewhere. Many of my studies are essentially about methods I created to tap how infants are thinking and covering previous attempts to measure similar things is especially important, but my stats are relatively simple.So maybe I’ll allocate 23% introduction, 45% method, 23% results, and 9% discussion. But I’ve seen talks where others collect huge samples with standardized instruments. Their contributions are mainly in the analysis, so maybe their talk allocations 17% introduction, 25% method, 43% results, and 9% discussion. The key is to be intentional about your time. Let’s look at each section and specific ways you might enhance your presentation.

You’ll begin your talk introducing your topic, hopefully with a hook. Most of your introduction is a literature review sharing a story leading the end of introduction – hypotheses.

Hook with Your Topic

Find a powerful opening to hook your audience and memorizing it helps us overcome our nerves when we start speaking. You might introduce your study with a statement or question about how your topic matters, practically, theoretically or both. Maybe you begin with a surprising statistic, a relevant short anecdote, or intriguing visual aid. I might begin a talk, “Where do those eureka moments of insight come from? They’re part of our every creative act and how humanity creates every technology and social advancement we have in our society today.” You’re telling your audience your talk is worth listening to.

Knowing your audience, you might refine your hook. For example, let’s say I’m presenting a study about problem solving for a job talk and I know my audience has many clinical psychologists. I might begin my talk saying, “Problem solving is everywhere – not just doing math tests.” And give a few quick examples about aggression as a problem-solving strategy, emotion-regulation as intrinsic to the frustration we feel facing obstacles to our goals, and how problem-solving compares and contrasts with rumination. Knowing your audience and having a hook for them builds their enthusiasm and sets up interesting questions after your talk.

Literature Review

When reviewing studies, focus on the core ideas rather than just specific methods you use. A study stays relevant if it explores the same concept, even if the approach differs. Instead of a ‘laundry list’ of every related study, create a story leading towards your hypothesis. While you’re justifying your hypothesis, it’s okay to mention theories and findings suggesting your hypothesis could be wrong. As scientists, our studies become more powerful when we shed light on differing viewpoints.

Hypothesis

Close your introduction with your hypothesis or a research question. Since you haven’t discussed your method yet, avoid method and statistical language. Instead of operational definitions, use theoretical constructs. For example, I wouldn’t say, “I predicted 4-year-olds performance on the day-night Stroop task will be positively correlated with performance on the false-belief task." Instead, say something like, "I predicted 4-year-olds who can inhibit well are more likely to understand another person's beliefs." Remember, as scientists, we debate whether particular operational definitions are good measures of particular theoretical constructs. If you make your hypothesis about method and results, you unfairly limit scientific debate.

Your method describes your participants and what you did. You’ll usually be clearest when describing the method from participants’ perspectives. It makes your study feel real to your audience. Provide sample items and show your stimuli; props and concrete examples engage your audience. But how do you explain your method in limited time? You need to be concrete and decide what to include.

Give your conditions descriptive names. If your participants randomly read a happy, neutral, or sad story, then name your conditions "happy", "neutral", and "sad." Naming conditions "1", "2", and "3" just unnecessarily taxes your audience’s memory. Be cautious to name conditions descriptively, never theoretically. For example, I designed a task teasing apart infants' use of hill-climbing and means-ends analysis as problem solving strategies. It would be intellectually dishonest of me to name the conditions "hill-climbing" and "means-ends analysis." Why? Other scientists can debate if my tasks really distinguish these strategies. I named my conditions “obtuse” and “acute” trials because canals infants pulled cloth through looked like either acute or obtuse angles.

Scientists love debating nitty-gritty details. But you can’t describe everything in limited time. Here’s a place to have your slides include details but you say highlights.For example, you could say, “students completed 10 tasks (gesture to list on slide); today I’d like to talk about how X and Y tasks (gesture to lines on slide) predict Z. Similarly, when describing your participants, don’t read details from your slides like, “62% female, 35% male, 3% left the item blank.75% were white…” Instead gesture and say something like, “most of the 92 participants were white women of typical college age.”

Understanding the results section usually requires the most background knowledge and it’s tricky if your audience’s background varies a lot. Scientists among your audience love the nitty gritty numbers (e.g., p-values, F-ratio, N) so be sure they’re included on your slides even if you don’t say them. But some non-scientists glaze over when hearing statistical and mathematical models, so create graphs and tables any audience member can follow. Audience members forget if you used a 5 or 7 point Likert scale, so have your graphs showing the full range. Remember, nobody knows your study like you.

Present your results in the same order you provide hypotheses in the introduction. First provide preliminary analyses briefly, almost like a hand gesture to your slide with details. Maybe you say, “preliminary analyses show gender and counterbalancing condition didn’t predict … so I did not include them when testing hypotheses.

Learning how to say your statistical analysis testing your hypothesis can be tricky. Here’s a general approach: (1) remind your audience of your hypothesis, (2) describe analysis, and (3) state your results.Using our earlier example (introduction > hypotheses), I might say, “I predicted 4-year-olds who can inhibit well are more likely to understand another person's beliefs. To test the hypothesis, I correlated the day-night Stroop task of inhibition with the Maxi false belief task. The statically-significant positive correlation suggestions inhibition and understanding another person’s beliefs are related like I predict.”

Summarize your major results in everyday language with theoretical constructs instead of operational definitions. Describe limitations of your study, framing each as a possible future study. Share why your study matters to practical applications, the progress of science, or both. Please don’t end your talk saying, “that’s it.” It’s anticlimactic. Just like you planned a hook to open your talk, plan a closing sentence. Maybe it’s a flowery poetic statement turning your study into a metaphor, maybe a grand conclusion, or maybe a hope for the future. Whatever you choose end with your voice to a crescendo, say “thank you,” and pause through a moment of silence.

Just like preparation is the most important part of giving a great talk, the best way to handle questions is preparation. Hopefully you can respond to questions with clarity, honesty, and grace. But how can you prepare? Everything you skipped because of limited time can be extra slides at the end of your presentation so you can pull them up while answering questions.It’s helpful having additional analyses, more details, and even block quotes of theoretical perspectives at your fingertips because you can’t look more professional than having a slide to gesture toward during spontaneous questions.

Go through your slides and ask yourself to justify your choices. Why did you choose one task over another? Why did you choose a within-subject design instead of between-subject? Why an interview instead of a survey? Why is your analysis a multiple regression instead of ANOVA? Asking ourselves helps us avoid feeling defensive. We sound professional when we can confidently explain our choice and acknowledge while other choices could have made sense too.“I conducted interviews because it allowed me to help participants elaborate their answers in meaningful ways, but I can appreciate a survey would allow us to have a greater sample size.My next study might use our transcripts to help us better generate survey items for a future study.”

Questions about Interpretation and Theory

Questions feel more challenging when they’re about our interpretations instead of our choices.
Remember when planning your literature review, you sought evidence against your hypothesis because your study becomes more meaningful when it sheds light on differing viewpoints (introduction > literature review). Creating straw-persons of opposing sides builds support for our side.But as scientists we need to hold our views tentatively and be committed to pursuing truth. So be kind presenting opposing views. Imagine you have audience members holding another view and be prepared to discuss how they might interpret your study. If you make them into a straw person, expect pointed questions.
But kindness gets repaid.For example, when I study domain general problem solving, I know modularity is another prominent worldview.Modularity is part of evolutionary psychology, so I’m kind to the theory during my talk and I’m prepared to discuss our competing worldviews gracefully, so I frame it as scientists with differing intuitions working towards our shared pursuit of understanding.

Really Tough Questions

No matter how much you prepare, you could face a question you haven’t expected. Remind yourself that’s okay. Nobody knows everything, science is social experience, and really tough questions open your mind to new possibilities. But how do you actually answer? Give yourself time to think. Ten seconds of silence feel excruciating to you but it’s nothing to your audience.

Try reducing your discomfort by keeping a relaxed posture conveying how you’re thinking. It’s okay to say you’re unsure. After a moment to think help your thoughts flow by acknowledging the question and reframing it as step toward scientific progress. "That is a really interesting question because if your hypothesis is true ...” “Since I designed my study like …, I don’t feel our results can tease apart these possibilities.” “Maybe a future study could tease possibilities apart by …”“How could you approach …” “What do you think?” Remember as a scientists you don’t claim to know “the truth.”Actually, if you are so dogmatic, you’re not doing science. Invite tough questions as way to help all of us pursue a deeper understanding.

Maybe after reading all these suggestions, you’re unnerved about how you’ll possibly remember everything.But “wonderful” is aspirational. You don’t need to be “perfect.” We can’t be anyway. Including me, so maybe some of my suggestions feel wrong to you. Please don’t feel compelled to take any advice.Actually, please don’t even try to.Giving a scientific talk is a skill; we learn through practice. You’re learning with each talk you give. Reread this essay another time and maybe something else will strike you. Even if your talk doesn’t meet your expectations, it’s okay. Mine don’t.And very experienced speakers still have room to grow. If you’re anything like me, you’ll dissect your every mistake afterward. Maybe not the healthiest choice, but common among scientists and any perfectionist. I like to remind myself I view my talks more harshly than any audience member. We compare our talks with ideals in our minds.But your audience compares your talk to nothing. When they take anything worthwhile away, they feel their time was worth it. And you, just caring enough to try and give a better talk - something you demonstrate simply by reading this- is often enough to give your first great talk.