Researchers in all fields are called upon to deliver their results in presentation form, but scientific presentations in particular have a bad reputation for being dry and indecipherable. It doesn’t have to be this way! Science is exciting, and delivering an engaging presentation does not have to come at the expense of rigor.
The best presentations, regardless of discipline, tell a story. There is science to support this assertion–neuroscientists studying human cognition have established that narrative is the most powerful way to engage listeners. In an interview for the Journal of Neuroscience, Dr. Rachel Yehuda argues that “engaging listeners in the scientific journey creates a stronger, more meaningful transfer of knowledge because it elicits participation and creates an intellectual investment and emotional bond between the speaker and the audience.”
It is the emotional bond created by storytelling that is crucial to creating effective presentations. That may sound counter-intuitive–after all, what do emotions have to do with academic research? But in fact, modern understandings of the brain support this notion. Rather than operating in isolation from other mental processes, emotions are essential to human cognition and learning.
To illustrate, one of the most successful posters at a recent academic showcase hosted by my university was one that featured photos of the presenter’s study subjects, which happened to be lizards. The researcher, a PhD student in the biomedical sciences program, described the process of catching and caring for the lizards alongside descriptions of the study findings. The storytelling was engaging and added richness to the research, and while I remember that presentation very well, my memory of the dozen or so other posters that I reviewed that day is fuzzy.
If you want your presentation to make an impact beyond the limited scope of fellow researchers in your field, the first thing you should do is start thinking beyond the structure of a scientific manuscript. Although a poster may require an introduction, methods section, results, and conclusion, think of these as a rough, bare-bones outline of your scientific story. Ask yourself what story your study tells. Does it solve a problem? Shed new light on a well-trodden topic? Does it call into question long-held hypotheses? Even if your research is highly technical, it still has a story to tell.
Of course, visual storytelling is just as important as the spoken word. Images are powerful evokers of emotion and are less distracting and easier to process than text. Graphs and charts can also be highly impactful if they are clear and aesthetically pleasing, and are much more effective at telling the story of your data than tables. You should also be mindful of how humans process visual information. We are always on the lookout for patterns, and information is more likely to be absorbed if you keep this principle in mind when designing your visual aid. This guide provides a good basic overview of fundamental graphic design principles.
Fundamentally, your job is to answer the question, “So what?” Why should your audience care? What do you want them to think or do differently? Emotions and a sense of personal connection are some of the best audience motivators. Yehuda again highlights the importance of storytelling, even personal storytelling, in scientific discourse: “Autobiographical and personal reflections may seem like the opposite of objective scientific data, but since I have started including more of these in presentations, I have been surprised by the synergy between anecdote and fact. Their combination appears to increase the salience of information to the public who are the ultimate consumers, and also funders through their tax dollars, of scientific information.”
Yehuda’s last point is especially important to students and junior scientists. If you cannot make a compelling case for why the public should care about your work, funding agencies are less likely to reward your hard work with grants. If you want to make a memorable case for why your research matters, storytelling is essential.
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