Kursprogramm 2022/23

Convincing Scientific Talks on International Conferences –
Understand the Essentials and Train Your Skills

Infos

Trainer: Dr. Matthias Mayer, young scientists’ academy
Date: 22 March 2023, 13.30-17.30 Uhr
Format: zoom
Language: English

Content

To convince your audience in a conference talk, you need to deal very well with all three areas that are essential for scientific presentations:

I) Prepare Crystal Clear Content

Many scientific presentations suffer from too little clarity and too much content. Lecturers run through their slides, lose the audience at the very beginning. Learn instead to deliver a clear presentation by setting distinct goals, by using a convincing structure, and vivid examples that make your talk immediately understandable and memorable. Learn the required basics.

II) Design Proper Slides

Poorly designed slides are still very common. Lecturers frequently clutter them with too many words, with unstructured content, or misuse them as cheat sheets. They seem to copy these poor styles from one another. Learn to do better!

III) Be Convincing on Stage – on-site and online

Your talk stands or falls with your body language and spoken word. Aside valuable and clear content you should be able to deliver it in a way that motivates your audience to follow you. Many great researchers miss this chance. Learn the essentials and then apply them in a short talk that you present yourself in a small group.

Content

• Prepare clear content: take-home message, structure, audience focus
• Tell a vivid story: Use “Brain Cinema”
• Golden Rules of Slide Design (How many words & slides? Layout, colors, fonts? …)
• Body language: where to put your hands – and other questions
• Differences to address when presenting online or on-site
• Receive feedback on a short sample talk that you conduct yourself

Target audience

Doctoral students in all phases of their doctorate

Learning objectives

• You know the fundamentals of good scientific presentations in the 3 areas
• You present a 3-min talk and learn from peers’ feedback & video recording
• You know what you do well, what needs improvement, and how to improve

Methods

Trainer input, participants’ presentations in small groups, discussion in plenum. Each participant will conduct a short 3-minutes’ presentation (an excerpt of a larger one), receive feedback from peers and learn from a video recording.

Requirements

An undisturbed place from which you can participate, fast enough internet for zoom, being prepared to conduct a 3-min talk yourself (further instructions after signup).

About the trainer

Dr. Matthias Mayer received his PhD in Computer Science and his Diploma in Visual Communication. He has trained young scientists in career related soft skills like time management, communication, and presen­tation skills for almost 20 years. He works for several universities, graduate academies, CRCs, and institutions like EMBL, Max Planck and Helmholtz Institutions. In 2021 he founded the young scientists’ academy.

Registrations are open until 15 March 2023.
Number of participants: 5-40

Further information on participation and the storage and use of data within the framework of the BW-CAR-Kolleg can be found under the following link.