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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

PhD: Slide preparation and giving presentation

PhD: Slide preparation and giving presentation.
Giving presentation in PhD study could be an "earthquake"! Imaging that all eyes are focusing on you and on what you're going to say. Those eyes belong to Professors and the so called experts in the related field. The problem is that they're not simply watching and listening. There are "bullets" waiting for you at the end of your presentation and you must have a good shield to protect yourself. Taking it positively, whether it's painful or not, those bullets are good for you to move on. In this case, effective slide presentation and delivering approach are crucial. I'll share with you some of the tips given to me by my respected supervisor. Depending on places of study, universities have different ways of monitoring their students' progress. In my case, I've to go through two colloquiums before defending my proposal. Tips given by my supervisor for the first presentation:
  1. slide for first presentation should cover what has been done (in the area concerned), what has been found, and what need to be done (research problem, research objectives, research framework/model), context of study and significant of study.
  2. less number of slide but more on talking - ability to talk more from less slide shows that the presenter is well-verse in his/her study.
  3. there shouldn't be slide/s for LR - LR should be "embedded" in slide/s of other sections such as problem statement, contribution of study, research model, etc.

Tips of what to do just before the presentation time for a nervous person like me:

  1. arrives early at the "war zone"
  2. make sure you transfer data from your thumbdrive to the PC and try the slide show first
  3. chat with the panels and audience

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

good piece of advice...and perhaps one more thing that you can do is to practice prior to the actual presentation

M Fairuz said...

I do have to agree with En Nazif. For me especially as I need to present materials to my bosses. Sometimes it really pains, but as you were saying, it's really good to move on..