Seminar and Conference Presentations 143
Research ethics guidelines have clear protocols for reportage of joint work.
These are no more than the commonly accepted rules that permit people to work
cordially together, and it is arguably more important to recognize that each of the
parties in a joint enterprise will bring to it strengths to address and weaknesses to
overcome. In short, a good professional relationship is far more important than a
set of rules. Who is to write what? Who will keep the project moving? Whose name
will go first? Who will make contact with the editor of the journal? My advice is to
resolve these issues openly and early, so that there are no misunderstandings.
Seminar and Conference Presentations
Oral presentations involve several challenges: choosing what to say, transformation
of written work into a spoken form, competent delivery, and dealing with nerves.
Your first seminar presentation may be the most difficult one. You are certainly
not on top of your project yet, or comfortable with your knowledge of the research
area, but you have to convince your university that the project you are working on
is suitable for a PhD study, and that you yourself ‘have a PhD in you’. How will
you proceed?
Don’t assume that you can take for granted that your audience will know what
the project is all about. Start with your problem statement and aim. Then follow with
background, but a much-reduced version of it, because you want to concentrate on
your own work. Sketch your ideas and methods, then give a progress report on the
results of your own work. In your final seminar before you present your thesis for
examination, you should follow the same pattern, starting with the background and
aim, but concentrating more on the findings and their implications.
Because one of the intentions of student presentations is to get critical (that is,
insightful, honest, and perceptive) feedback, you need to set the tone of your pre-
sentation in such a way that you achieve this aim. This means getting the balance
right, and not spending too much time on one part to the detriment of others.
In developing a presentation, there are several simple principles to keep in mind.
One is that ‘a talk is a conversation with educated friends’. You are not giving a
political speech, or presenting a legal argument, or convincing people to buy some-
thing they don’t need or that doesn’t work, or trying to crush an opponent in debate,
or delivering stand-up comedy, or being a newsreader. That is, there are dozens of
kinds of public speaking, and you need to find the right model. In my view, thinking
of the presentation as an informal, intelligent explanation is the right one. When you
practise your talk, for example, you should be able to model your choice of words
on what you would say to your colleagues in the corridor, should they ask you for a
quick explanation of what you are doing. There is no need to be excessively formal,
or excessively showy.
Another principle is that ‘the talk is about the work, but is not the work itself’.
You can’t present a complete thesis in 30 min or an hour, so why try? The talk
should explain why the work is interesting, what in it is new or insightful, and give