How NOT to give a presentation
Today was a long day. I had gone to sleep at 2 in the morning because I stayed up all night prepping for my two sections. I taught two sections back-to-back, going for nearly four hours straight, after which I went to a panel discussion on Taiwan. The panel was awful, just abysmal and I left halfway. I learned nothing about Taiwan, but I did learn something about how NOT to give a presentation.
1.) Don't speak so quickly that every other word is "uh" or "you know".
2.) Reading verbatim from a prepared speech is BORRRINGG!
3.) Reading verbatim from your PowerPoint slides is also BORRRRINGGG!
4.) Reading verbatim from your PowerPoint slides which are solely composed of passages from your paper just screams "amateur".
5.) Reading verbatim from your PowerPoint slides which are solely composed of your paper and then skipping large sections of what appear to be interesting points (skipping slides so fast that one can't read them) is frustrating and annoying.
6.) Doing number 5 and then switching to a Word document of the original paper to show the unintelligible charts and graphs and then switching back to PowerPoint to show the speech that the author is reading is really, really embarrassing.
What really surprised me was that these people weren't inexperienced; they were senior scholars. Granted, they were not from the United States, but I've seen foreign scholars give MUCH more compelling presentations. I wasn't the only one surprised. A fellow grad student mused about whether the bar was really so low that people could get away with such shoddy preparation.
So after ditching the panel my colleague and I had lunch at a nearby falafel restaurant that I have become increasingly addicted to. Seriously, I think that my chickpea consumption has spiked like 500% since this restaurant opened. I've probably eaten more chickpeas in the form of falafel and hummus in the past month than I did all last semester. I was very sad to learn that falafels are not very healthy, but I have contented myself with their vegetarian plate of hummus, baba ghanouj, pita, and salad, with two falafel balls thrown in for good measure. Yummy!
I have to submit a draft of my dissertation prospectus on Monday for my workshop to look at for Thursday so tomorrow I am going to camp out at the local cafe and work until my eyes fry or my fingers cramp up, whichever comes first!
4 comments:
My biggest pet peeve is when the speakers turn around to read right off the slides--so their voices project at the screen, rather than the audience.
I wonder if it's because these professors are used to dealing with small groups of people. I attended a professional seminar in Thailand last year and presentations were similar to what you described. We were also told that college classes are very small, no more than 15 people. I guess it's easier to read that small print if you sit close to the screen. Still, reading is not excusable. Alas, our speakers did read most of the time. Cultural differences??
Mmmm I would kill for some really good falafel. Or some really good hummus.
I have to say that I'm really working on trying to find the perfect balance for presentations. I've tried so many different ways, and some ways seem to work better for situations. (Power point outlines are sometimes great for paper presentations, but I hate using them for classes, for example). There really needs to be more professional development at the graduate level so that we can be more confident going out to present... it won't prevent senior scholars from making those mistakes, but it sure would help me and future generations!
Hey everyone, thanks for all the comments. Alice, I definitely agree that some profs may very well not be used to adjusting their presentation to a larger group. Maybe reading verbatim is a mechanism to cope with stage fright?
Kristiface, I totally agree with the professional development thing. I wonder if any programs have a half-semester seminar about transitioning to faculty or just general "academic skills" courses? I can think of a few ideas, like how to conduct oneself in an interview for television or radio, how to deliver a lecture to the general public (as opposed to a class of docile undergrads), how to deliver a conference presentation, what to expect at tenure hearings, etc.
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