How to Prepare for an Oral Research Presentation

Prepare an oral presentation by deciding your single main message, structuring the talk around it, designing simple slides, rehearsing to time, and planning for questions and technical problems.

Steps

1. Check the format: time limit, question time, slide format, equipment and whether slides are submitted in advance.
2. Define the message and the three points that support it.
3. Structure: background and question (about 15% of the time), methods (about 20%), results (about 40%), conclusion and implications (about 15%), questions (the remainder). Adjust to the time you have.
4. Design slides: one idea per slide, large fonts, minimal text, clear figures and a consistent theme.
5. Write notes or a script and then practise from keywords instead of reading.
6. Rehearse aloud several times, with a timer, ideally with an audience.
7. Prepare for questions (see How to Prepare for Questions During a Scientific Presentation).
8. Check equipment early, with a backup copy of the slides.

Delivery

Speak slowly, look at the audience, point to the key figure and finish on time. If nervous, practise breathing, arrive early and remember that audiences generally want you to do well.

Illustrative example

Invented for teaching. A student has 8 minutes. She cuts her slides from 20 to 8, with one slide for each of: question, design, population, main result, secondary result, limitation, conclusion and acknowledgements. Rehearsals show she needs to cut a methods detail; she finishes in 7:45.

Handling the unexpected

Bring the file in two formats and on two devices, and check fonts and embedded videos on the conference computer. If the projector fails, be ready to give the talk without slides by describing the key figure in words. If you lose your place, pause, look at the slide and continue; audiences rarely notice short pauses as much as speakers do.

Common pitfalls

• Too many slides.
• Reading from slides.
• Running over time.

Key takeaways

• One message, simple slides, timed rehearsal.
• Plan for questions and technical problems.

This page is general educational information about research methods. It is not medical, legal or regulatory advice; follow your institution's ethics board and your target journal's instructions.