Presentation Guidelines

Oral Session
Presentation Guidelines
These guidelines are based on converting a standard, research poster presentation to an oral format.
For many liberal arts disciplines, these guidelines might not suit your presentation. In these cases, please
contact your faculty and research@msubillings.edu to make other arrangements.
For those whose research does fit the standard, poster presentation format: Your presentation should
be an overview of your research that can fit into a 5-to-7-minute presentation (see below for more
details). Given the nature of research, many of you may only have preliminary results, which is common
and completely acceptable.
Consider the Type of Presentation

Presentations will take place both synchronously and asynchronously.
Synchronous Presentations: Students are encouraged to participate in the live event. Presentations for
this synchronous event consist of a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation (7-minutes for presentation, 3
minutes for questions).
Asynchronous Presentations: It is understandable that some students might not be able to make the
live event. In which case, we also provide asynchronous participation. These asynchronous
presentations require:
• Video Link: Students should upload video of no more than 5 minutes, describing their project.
Please provide the video via a YouTube link.
All students are encouraged to submit their projects to be posted to ScholarWorks, an online repository
that provides a permanent record of your project that you can share with future employers, graduate
schools, family members, etc. More information can be found here.
Consider Your Audience

Not all of your audience will have technical knowledge of your field. Define any technical terms, and as
much as possible use language that is understandable to a general audience.
Ask yourself:
• Does my audience have any technical knowledge of my field?
• Are they familiar with recent research?
• Are there any technical terms that I need to define for my audience? You need to be able to
present your research in a way that will engage and inform all of your audience, not just
your supervisor.
Consider the Structure
Structure your talk so you do not exceed your time limit. Be selective about what you say.
Introduce:
• yourself, your topic, and the broader context of your research; and
• the main hypothesis or research question.
Methods:
• procedures used in testing the study hypothesis;
• materials, equipment, procedures should all be described and detailed.
Results:
• key findings, trends in your data, progress to date;
• tables and figures, statistical results and experimental error; and
• any difficulties with your method.
Conclusions:
• whether your results confirm your hypotheses;
• whether you may need to redesign any aspect of the research; and
• likely implications, possible applications, plans for future work.
Acknowledgements and References:

• Include full citation information for all sources, using the style appropriate to your field; and
• Acknowledge any contributors, advisors, or grant funding.
Using PowerPoint Slides
• Ensure PowerPoint slides are not too cluttered (max 10 lines of text) and use large font size (24
pt is recommended). Use bullet points when possible; full sentences are not always needed.
Maximize the “info to ink ratio” – provide the most amount of info with the least amount of ink.
• Do not simply read out your slides verbatim. The slides should just list key points for you to
expand on as you talk. Write notes for each slide to help you in organizing your thoughts.
• Your audience should know why each slide and graphic is being used, so they should be
integrated into your presentation. If you are presenting pictures, diagrams, tables or graphs, you
should point out their significant features.
• A good guideline is to spend about 2 minutes to talk through the points on a slide. With a 10-
minute presentation where you need to allow a few minutes at the end for questions, you will
likely only have time to present a title slide and three or four other slides.
• Practice your presentation with friends, faculty or peers to help time the length of your
presentation. Be sure to practice your conclusion, which provides a summary for your audience
and ends your presentation on a strong note.
• Do not allow slides to take over and detract from the whole presentation. Use a consistent
design and format for all slides, with a sans serif font (e.g., Arial). Ensure that your slides are
clear, easy to read, and relevant. Avoid unnecessary “special effects.”
Presenting Data
• Visual presentations need to present information simply and clearly. If you overwhelm your
audience with information, they will be tempted to read rather than listen. A graph that you’ve
prepared for your thesis, or a screen snapshot copied from a website, may be too detailed for
your audience to see clearly or understand.
• Graphs should have bold lines with simple, clearly numbered axes, and strong contrast. If you’re
presenting information in the form of a bar chart with more than five categories that need to be
differentiated, the chart will be difficult to read. In this case, reduce the amount of information
in your slide; perhaps you can make two or more slides to indicate different trends in the data.
• Animated effects in PowerPoint can be useful for presenting data (beware: use them sparingly
and carefully!). For example, you can set up your slideshow so that each set of data appears
with a mouse click, allowing you to speak about each data set before, or while, displaying it.

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Presentation Guidelines

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Oral Session

Consider the Type of Presentation

Consider Your Audience

Acknowledgements and References:

Using PowerPoint Slides

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