Hi Ady,
Its Teresa (I had forgotten I had this username) Many thanks for your reply. I didn't reply until now as I have been working on getting the presentation ready. Thank you for your comments, they were very helpful and echoed that of my friends. I think the problem I encountered was that I was a late addition to the conference, so as such I wasn't expected to provide a typical conference paper/presentation - it was more of a introductory presentation. However that worked in my favour as some other speakers pulled out so I spoke for 20 mins, with 15 mins for q's. I also took your point about not giving too much away. Part of what I have been working on is a paper, but I am not keen on talking about my findings until I have at least a final draft. In the end my presentation was an introduction to my research proposal and the work i have conducted to date (I only started my PhD in Sept). I talked about how the literature review has led to me refining my research participants, the inspiration for my proposal and the ways I have promoted the project. The presentation went very well, I had a lot of interest, and although I wish I hadn't been so nervous, at least I have got this under my belt. Thank you again for your comments :-) TeresA X
Quote From Ady:
If it is a 20 min presentation which is pretty normal for PhD students your outline sounds a bit ambitious to me. I think you need to decide what you want the audience to hear, ie your proposal, tentative findings OR how you are promoting your research but I don't think you can do all three justice in 20 minutes. I have been to many presentations where the presenter spends so long laying out the context and explaining their topic that they rush through the actual interesting bit and say very little about what the audience thought they were going to hear.
The beginning few points could be condensed into a few points (2 slides at best). So for example you could have your title slide up at the start and use that to briefly explain your research. While tentative findings are good, some people are wary of presenting findings early on. This can be becuase they may not be supported later on in the research or becuase they don't want other people stealing their ideas - or maybe I'm just too cynical!! However I certainly wouldn't give the audience all you have;-)
I don't think there is anything wrong at the start letting the audience know that the presentation is going to be on one specific aspect of your research. As long as you are clear about what they are going to hear people are well able to listen and process a presentation without having the project fully laid out for them. I think focussed presentations on one or two specific aspects are the most successful. You could start by explaining (while your title slide is on display) that you are a PhD student at 'x' stage of your research, your topic is looking at (2-3 minute pitch, 5 mins tops) and that today you are going to look at 'y' aspect of your research. You should then have 12-15 minutes to give a really interesting presentation.
If it's more than 20 minutes, well to be honest I still think you need to focus it a bit more narrowly!
Good luck - conferences presentations are simultaneously terrifying and yet exhiliarting:-) I used to hate them but now actually enjoy them - once they're over of course!!
:-):-)
