CSCI 373: Technical
Presentations That Work
Michael A. Heroux
Presenters want their audiences to listen
and take away the main message of the presentation. Furthermore, presenters want
the talk to be so interesting that audience members will download related
papers, buy a book or invite the presenter to speak in another venue. A good
presentation delivers the important message, is somewhat entertaining (but
entertainment is not a substitute for
solid technical content) and leaves the audience wanting more. Therefore good technical speaking skills are important for
your career.
Fact: It is not too strong a statement to say that good
presentation skills will open up a wide range of career opportunities (whether
you take them or not is your choice). You will probably appreciate these
opportunities when you have been doing the same job for five years and want to
try something new.
Here are a few resources for developing a
good presentation:
o
The
secret structure of great talks
by Nancy Duarte.
o
How
to Give a Talk and Top
Ten Ways to Lose an Audience by Tammy Kolda,
Sandia National Laboratories.
o
Deliver
a Presentation Like Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo.
o How to Give a Really Lousy Technical Presentation:
by Joseph G. Haworth, Jr. and David J. Reardon.
o The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint:
Pitching Out Corrupts Within by Edward R. Tufte.
o The Cognitive
Style of PowerPoint: Slides Are Not All Evil by Jean-Luc Doumont.
o Giving an Academic Talk by Jonathan Shewchuk.
One
of my talks:
Next Generation Applications: Using a
Productivity Focus, Michael A. Heroux
2015 OLCF Users Meeting: Reaching for the Summit
Together
Exercises:
Prepare and give a 3-minute technical presentation on a topic of your choice.
1. Pick a technical area (other than your semester
project topic) that you know well and in which have recently made some progress
in understanding.
Examples: Strategies for playing your favorite computer game; how to debug a
Java program; how to develop a software product.
2. Develop a 3 to 4 slide presentation on the topic.
3. Deliver the presentation during class twice:
a. First: Completely but with interruptions from
instructor to highlight improvements.
b. Second: Redo portions that were the focus of
improvement.