Presenting your work is a core part of research, and something I would encourage you to seek out through your PhD journey. However, strong research does not automatically translate into a strong presentation. Having recently attended a number of conferences – both international research conferences, and internal PhD conferences – in this post I outline some practical strategies and common pitfalls to optimise your presentations.
1. The importance of narrative
The most effective presentations follow a clear narrative. These can be incredibly hard to craft, particularly in inter-disciplinary contexts. A common structure is to cover:
- What the problem is
- What the research questions are
- Method / study design
- Selected results
- Discussion focussed on the problem statement
A good narrative is not just about organising or ordering your slides – it is the story that guides your audience through your thinking. Without it, even technically strong work can feel fragmented or difficult to follow.
Some people come to this easily; others find it hard to translate a written narrative to a presentation format; others find it hard to do either. Some of the worst talks I have sat through are not because the presentation style is poor or the work is weak – it’s because I don’t know what I’m being told because the narrative is weak.
2. Don’t overload on literature
One of the most common issues I have noticed amongst weaker presenters is trying to include too much background literature. With too much time spent on going over the background literature, too little time is left for the presenter to highlight their own work. A little is needed to ground the problem and make the work non-trivial, but a little is all.
Remember that while your literature review is essential to your research:
- Slides are not the place for deep literature synthesis
- Audiences cannot absorb dense citations in a live talk
At a recent conference I noticed that several presenters struggled because they attempted to showcase the breadth of their reading instead of capturing the essence of the problem they were addressing. The audience got bogged down in trying to understand a literature review, rather than following the presenters’ work.
A much better approach is to summarise only what is necessary to motivate your work, focussing on where the research gap exists, and why it matters. In terms of narrative flow, this is relating to what the problem is and what your research questions are. Save your detailed literature review for your paper or thesis
3. Keep your slides focussed
A recurring issue is keeping your slides focussed. In terms of the slide deck as a whole, I have sat through presentations that are simply trying to get through too many slides. This usually stems from trying to include too much detail, and too many ideas in a single talk.
Remember – a presentation is not your thesis—it is a curated argument.
You have to be ruthless; cut anything that doesn’t support your core message. Prioritise clarity over completeness. This also helps with crafting a narrative that works.
Similar thoughts apply to individual slides. Busy slides, or slides with too much content are simply too hard for an audience to parse and understand. Minimalism is your friend – if there’s more than 3/4 pieces of content on a slide, it’s likely too much.
4. Highlight your contribution
Across multiple presentations, one issue stood out; poor positioning of the contribution.
When the narrative includes a strong articulation of the work’s research questions, the audience has a point to ground themselves – whether thinking about the method, the results, the fit with prior literature; a clear articulation of RQs support this broader thinking.
This can be particularly challenging for interdisciplinary research, where the positioning of contribution can be challenging. You have to remember the composition of your audience. For example, if you are working on a digital health project, and presenting at a computing conference, you must remember that the vast majority of the audience are not going to understand the health domain well; you have to unpack both the contributions to health – but also to computing.
A good sanity check is to go through your slides. You should be able to answer:
- What does my work add?
- How is it different from similar research?
- Why does this matter for my field?
If you can’t easily answer this from your slides, how can you expect your audience to?
5. Practice, practice practice
Some people have natural presentation skills; others need to practice. Just like with writing, clear presentations is a learned skill that you can develop. It is tempting when you have had a paper that has taken months to craft, to minimise the amount of time you dedicate to writing the presentation. I’ve done it myself – and they are some of the weakest presentations I’ve ever delivered.
After a practice presentation, do update your slides. You can throw slides away, reformat them, reorder and reframe. Do the same for the narrative across the whole slide deck.
I would argue that you need to practice presentations for multiple things – fluency, field test the slides, check the narrative, hone the message you are communicating, consider obvious or likely questions. Because of this, it can be helpful to practice your presentation with different audiences – just yourself, to your supervisor, to your peers, to a local seminar series. Each of these audiences has something different to contribute.
Final Thoughts
Across all these notes, one message stands out: the best presentations are not those that say the most—they are those that communicate the core idea most effectively. As you prepare you next talk, really, really think about what it is you want your audience to know by the end. Craft your presentation around that goal.