Did you ever fall asleep during a slide-heavy presentation? Or at least felt like it? You don’t want this to happen to your audience! Understand why so many scientists make so severe mistakes in how they conceptualize and design slides. Learn to master this crucial area of truly convincing scientific presentations.
Goals
- You know the Six Golden Rules of Slide Design
- You know important techniques in PowerPoint (this is no PPT introduction)
- You can ask whatever you need to use PPT to its fullest potential
Content
- What are the most widespread mistakes when scientists are using slides?
- Slide-design:
- How many slides should I prepare?
- How many words per slide?
- How should a background look like?
- Which fonts should I use? What size?
- How should I layout items on the slide?
- Should I use figures and images? If so, what is important?
- Which flaws are most common and how do I avoid them?
- The most important technical tips and tricks for PPT
Methods
Mixture of trainer input and group interactions (e.g. finding things to improve in a given slide), participants can ask their individual questions.
Technical Requirements for Participation
- A place from where you can participate without being disturbed
- A computer with microphone and speakers or headset
- Stable internet connection (ethernet cable preferred over Wi-Fi)
It would be a pity to let this chance pass!
Matthias Mayer is one of the most dedicated, passionate and enthusiastic instructors I have encountered in any subject in a really long time.
I had the opportunity to attend his 2-day online workshop on scientific presentation. It is easy to see that he not only has an enormous knowledge base in his domain of expertise but also puts his 200% into both producing and delivering the distilled content that he wishes to serve his attendees in the most efficient and effective way possible.
His workshops cover a lot of ground thematically for the allotted time. Nevertheless, despite the intensive nature of his workshops, he manages to give focussed, pointed and transformative feedback to each of the individual participants on all aspects of their presentation, many times, over the course of a single workshop.
This I found extremely helpful in transforming my presentation from good to wow! I also found the external resources he provides his attendees in the form of handouts and videos to be especially thorough and beneficial for future learning.
It is also worth mentioning that despite the fact that our workshop was held entirely over Zoom, the distance was imperceptible.
If I get another chance, I would definitely attend another workshop with Matthias Mayer. It would be a pity if you had the chance and you let it pass.
[after a 2-days online Training on Scientific Presentation]
Have a deeper impact
I took Matthias´ two days online workshop on “Presenting Science”. I had high expectations as I heard good comments about it in previous years; however, I was a bit afraid and not very comfortable with the idea of recording myself and analyze my presentation skills in front of other people. The truth is that during the workshop, I didn´t even think about that. Being a small group, the attention is personalized, the atmosphere is friendly and cozy, giving the opportunity to be helped but also to help others. I can tell that the course is well prepared and structured and that Matthias has a lot of experience in the subject. This workshop is not a one-way talk where the presenter gives tips and the attendees listen, it is a place where opinions, feedbacks, advice and comments go in all directions including among participants. I liked it, I enjoyed it and I found the information useful. I would definitely recommend it to those who wish to have a deeper impact on their scientific presentations.
One of my best experiences
Thank you for the amazing course. It was indeed one of my best experiences.
With a simple, vivid as well as professional way you managed to cover all the important topics how to successfully present scientific talks. There are some “secrets of success” that I was not aware.
Definitely, after your guidance I know how to give an excellent talk and my audience go back home happy for deeply understanding the take home message of my presentation.
I could raise my presentation skills from good to excellent [...] Strongly recommended!
The two-day online course on scientific presentation was really useful for me. [...] I could raise my presentation skills from good to excellent. [...] it worked really well online. [...] Matthias was very engaging and the course was very interactive. [...]
What I found most special about this course is the very individualized feedback that each of us received on multiple aspects of presentation. Recording a video of us while presenting and then watching it and discussing it individually with Matthias was a very unique and useful experience which one rarely ever has when presenting in real life. [...]
I am really looking forward to my next talk [...] Strongly recommended!